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II 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 


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*    JUL  23  1903      *, 


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Stryker,  Melancthon  Woolsey 

1851-1929. 
The  well  by  the  gate 


THE   WELL   BY   THE   GATE 


FRKS.    M.    WOOl.SKY    S'lRVKKK,    D.D..    LI,.U. 


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^be  preebi^terian  pulpit 

^ 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 


BY  THE 

REV.  M.  WOOLSEY  STRYKER,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

President  Hamilton  College 


PHILADELPHIA 

PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD   OF  PUBLICATION 
AND   SABBATH-SCHOOL  WORK 

1903 


Copyright,  1902,  by  the  Trustees  of 
The  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication  and  Sabbath- 
School  Work. 

Published  January,  igoj. 


CONTENTS 


I.  The  Well  by  the  Gate  . 

II.  The  Carpenter's  Son 

III.  The  Tower  of  Siloam 

IV.  John's  Three  Definitions  of  God 
V.  Conviction,  or  Hearsay  . 

VI.  The  Unknown  God  . 

VII.  The  Sanctions  of  Law     . 

VIII.  The  Invisible  Companion 


PAGE 

3 

13 
25 
43 
59 
73 
89 
105 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

"Oh  that  one  would  give  me  water  to  drink  of  the  well  of 
Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate !" — 2  Sam.  xxiii.  15. 

It  is  the  cry  of  a  homesick  heart.  It  is  an 
episode  from  one  of  the  ruggedest  and  most 
educative  parts  of  the  life  of  David, — shepherd 
and  soldier,  singer  and  king. 

David  was  at  Adullam,  in  the  region  of  Tekoa, 
a  little  southeast  of  Bethlehem.  He  was  a  warrior 
now,  wonted  to  rough  fare  and  to  all  the  priva- 
tions of  outlawry :  through  the  enmity  of  the  king 
whom  he  had  been  appointed  to  succeed,  an  ad- 
venturer, and,  though  almost  within  sight  of  his 
birthplace,  an  alien. 

There  are  vital  thrusts  against  which  no  harness 
of  war  is  proof,  and  one  day  there  came  upon 
David  there  a  consuming  desire  for  a  taste  of  that 
water  which  was  at  the  gate-side  of  the  little 
town,  so  few  miles  away,  where  once  had  been 
his  home. 

3 


4  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

Easily  we  read  enough  between  the  lines  of  the 
incident  to  comprehend  that  the  thirst  was  not  so 
much  in  this  man's  throat  as  in  his  heart.  Amid 
these  deeds  of  arms  his  spirit  was  wounded  and 
parched.  A  glimpse,  a  recollection,  and  then  a 
sharp  longing  not  to  be  stifled—"  water !" 

Just  behind  those    hills  lay   the   scene   of  his 
boyhood.     The  whole  landscape  rushed  upon  his 
memory,— the  kindly  old  olive  trees,  the  winding 
familiar  paths  between,  the   bleating  flocks,  the 
kine  lowing  in  the  afternoon.     His    soul  gave  a 
great  lurch  toward  it  all,  and  his  lips  burned  for 
one  more  swallow,  with  his  hand  for  a  cup,  of 
that  cooling  spring.     Overpoweringly  he  remem- 
bered the  days  when  his  now  bronzed  face  was 
ruddy,  the    evenings  when    he    piped   the   sheep 
to   their  fold,  that   night  when    he  strode  home 
shouldering  on  the  one  side  that  hurt  but  rescued 
lamb  and  on  the  other  the  skins  of  the  lion  and 
the   bear,— all    that    dear  domestic  horizon,  with 
its  rural  duties  and  its   untroubled  faith.     Now, 
captain-at-arms  though  he  was,  the  rushing  asso- 
ciations forced  from  him  the  exceeding  cry  :  "  Oh 
that  one  would  give  me  water  to  drink  of  the  well 
of  Bethlehem,  which  is  by  the  gate !" 

Who  does  not  know,  or  at  least  who  will  not 
know,  the  wistful  yearning,  that  when  it   comes. 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE  5 

comes  so  full  and  passionate  for  the  old  width 
and  imagination,  the  plain  joys  and  complete 
satisfactions  of  childhood?  In  what  relief  and 
reality  does  memory's  spectroscope  set  the  sim- 
plest things  of  youth  !  How  it  cleanses  the  pal- 
impsest of  the  years  to  get  back  the  hoHest  text 
so  overwritten  with  lesser  thoughts  ! 

The  lore  of  the  household,  of  which  our  store 
is  so  precious,  abounds  in  these  tender  revertings 
for  the  cot  and  the  cottage.  *'  The  old  oaken 
bucket "  ;  ''  Rock  me  to  sleep,  mother  "  ;  **  Home, 
sweet  home  " — these  and  such  as  these,  of  whose 
echoes  our  folk-song  is  full,  are  the  anthology  of 
the  heart.  Well  does  Burns  say  of  the  lyrics 
of  the  fireside,  "  Compared  with  these,  Italian 
trills  are  tame."  A  literature  with  no  psalms  and 
no  cradle-songs  were  poor  indeed,  and  the  life 
that  does  not  cherish  these  is    a   harp   untuned. 

**  There  are  gains  for  all  our  losses, 
There  is  balm  for  all  our  pain  : 
But  when  youth,  the  dream,  departs, 
It  takes  something  from  our  hearts 
That  can  never  come  again." 

A  while  ago  I  passed  carwise  through  a  ham- 
let of  Pennsylvania,  near  where  the  upper  Sus- 
quehanna wanders  toward  the  sea,  and  where  once 
I  lived,  a  boy  of  twelve :  but  how  strangely  the 


6  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

hills,  the  stream,  the  street,  had  dwindled  and 
shrunk  together !  Size  is  relative  to  that  central 
affection  which  magnifies  all  its  store  of  sur- 
roundings. That  which  is  about  has  its  perspec- 
tive, not  in  fact  but  in  love's  wiser  fancy.  We 
cannot  restore  the  outer  ratio  of  what  made  life's 
earhest  impressions.  A  secret  and  vanished  beauty 
fails  of  reattachment  to  visible  things.  The  lute 
is  hushed,  the  chairs  are  vacant,  and  Charles 
Lamb's  plaint  springs  to  pallid   lips: — 

"  Ghost-like  I  paced  round  the  haunts  of  my  childhood, 
Earth  seemed  a  desert  I  was  bound  to  traverse, 
Seeking  to  find  the  old  familiar  faces." 

The  well  is  shallower.  The  waters  that  "were 
wont  to  go  warbhng  so  softly  and  well "  do  not 
flow  as  they  used  to  flow.  Their  gush  and 
sparkle  have  escaped  and  something  tepid  and 
tasteless  has  come.  The  sweetness  was  about, 
not  in,  the  draught.  The  taste  was  in  the  tongue 
and  the  lips  that  have  changed. 

David  wanted,  not  what  he  thought  he  wanted 
and  asked  for  so  importunately,  but  his  child- 
hood. It  was  that  which  haunted  his  faint  and 
dusty  heart.  The  three  brave  companions  could 
not  fetch  it.  The  fountain  of  a  past  youth  could 
not  be  forced  at  the  sword's  point,  nor  the  cup  of 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE  7 

a  life  irrevocably  departed  become  the  trophy  of 
war.  And  so  when  they  came  from  their  loyal 
and  daring  quest,  David  poured  out  what  they 
brought  him  as  a  libation,  nor  would  he  take 
for  himself  what  had  been  their  jeopardy.  He 
wanted  it  no  more,  or  rather,  knew  that  what  he 
wanted  with  it  was  other  and  impossible. 

Suffer,  then,  a  word  upon  all  this  to  you  who 
sometimes,  even  if  not  yet  old,  turn  with  thirsty 
eyes  toward  an  earlier  time,  and  who  make  your 
own  the  substance  of  this  lonely  cry.  Perhaps 
the  parching  years  have  made  your  lips  and 
throats  to  ache  with  want, — sailors  adrift  upon 
brackish  floods  that  offer  "  never  a  drop  to  drink." 
You  who  would  give  all  you  have  for  that  boyish 
simplicity  with  which  you  knelt  at  a  crib-side 
and  kissed  a  pure  good  night  upon  lips  whose 
earthly  benediction  has  been  so  long  time  mute, — 
look !  Listen,  as  that  little  lad  yonder  with  his 
small  treble  prattles  the  twilight  prayer — "  Now 
I  lay  me  down  to  sleep."     It  is  yourself 

You  have  read  that  sweet  sketch  of  Holmes, 
ending  with  "  Two  tickets  for  Boston,"  and  then 
with  the  long  deep  sigh — "  No,  one  ticket  for 
Boston." 

"  Oh  for  a  man  to  arise  in  me 
^^  That  the  man  that  I  am  may  cease  to  be  !" 


8  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

Oh,  God,  for  an  hour  of  yesterday,  for  but  one 
taste  of  that  old  innocence,  for  that  blessedest 
tether  of  "a  mother's  apron-strings" — oh,  for 
"  the  well  which  is  by  the  gate  "  ! 

But  the  real  gate  and  the  path  to  it  are  still 
accessible,  and  to  every  way-weary  soul,  like  good 
news  from  a  far  country,  there  is  offered  a  cup  of 
cold  water  and  a  childhood  reattained.  O  dis- 
ciple of  regret  and  longing,  it  is  from  Him  who 
can  transform  this  transient  valley  of  Baca !  It 
is  from  "  that  spiritual  Rock  that  followed  them." 
It  is  clean  and  cool  from  more  than  artesian 
depths.  It  is  freely  bestowed  of  Him  who  ven- 
tured, who  gave,  His  life  to  fetch  it  for  you.  Re- 
fuse it  you  may  not;  for  He  alone  had  such  a 
right  of  jeopardy  on  your  behalf  It  is  drawn 
from  the  wells  of  salvation,  clear  as  crystal.  Take 
it  to  your  lips  and  heart,  **  a  fountain  of  gar- 
dens, .  .  .  and  streams  from  Lebanon."  He  who 
for  you  said,  "  I  thirst,"  who  thirsts  for  you,  de- 
clared, "  Whosoever  drinketh  of  the  water  that  I 
shall  give  him  shall  never  thirst " — never  again 
unavailingly ! 

Know  where  these  waters  run.  Forget  them 
not.  For  you  may  clear  a  large  place  for  yourself, 
or  come  to  a  cave :  but  it  will  crowd  you  some 
day,  the   intense   desire,   the  need,  the  memory. 


THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE  9 

God  grant  you  then  the  song :  "  Spring  up,  O 
well !     Sing  ye  unto  it !" 

It  is  no  mirage,  and  this  Old  Testament  story 
is  an  idyl  and  message  of  its  truth.  Press  that 
day, — press  now, — to  the  gates  of  Bethlehem, — a 
man's  heart  in  a  child's  home.  It  is  the  "  house 
of  bread,"  city  of  Ruth,  of  Ruth's  great-grandson, 
of  Mary,  of  the  Babe,  and  the  shepherds  of  the 
temple  .of  flocks,  and  the  wise  men.  To  him 
who  cries,  "  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water 
brooks,  so  panteth  my  soul  after  Thee,  O  God," 
the  antiphon  answers,  that  clasps  in  merciful  as- 
surance every  homing  spirit,  "  Neither  shall  they 
thirst  any  more ;  for  the  Lamb  shall  lead  them." 

Comrades  all,  not  just  as  David's  servitors,  but 
at  trial,  cost  and  danger,  let  us  be  those  who  can 
bring  the  solace  of  a  renewing  God  to  them  that 
are  ready  to  perish.  To  carry  to  one  of  the  least 
of  these  the  cup  of  healing  is  a  soldier's  task  and 
a  saint's.     Freely  you  have  received,  freely  give. 

For  the  streams  for  which  the  spirit  cries  are 
not  from  any  of  the  hills  of  time,  and  that  which 
of  all  things  our  bodies  need  most  and  need  most 
constantly — water — is  a  parable. 


II 

THE   CARPENTER'S   SON 


II 

THE  CARPENTER'S  SON 
"Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son?" — Matt,  xiii,  55. 

A  MOTHER  telling  me  of  a  dear  child  whom 
God  had  taken  the  short  way  to  heaven,  of  his 
face  and  form,  his  winsomeness,  exclaimed  at  last : 
"  Oh,  if  I  had  a  picture  of  him  to  show  you !" 
and  I  said  :  "  I  do  not  need  it ;  your  story  is  more 
than  any  mere  likeness."  Love  is  the  best  camera 
and  the  heart  the  truest  sensitive  plate — there  is 
no  other  photography  like  that.  It  is  surer  than 
the  light  itself 

We  have  no  authentic  pictorial  proof  of  what 
Christ's  face  was  like.  But  we  need  none.  The 
loving  and  living  story  is  more  real  than  protrait- 
ure.  Here,  as  in  a  mirror,  we  behold  the  glory 
of  His  gentleness  and  grandeur.  And  we  know 
Him,  too,  by  their  inspired  faces  who  have,  soul 
to  soul,  begun  to  wear  His  image.  No  intaglio 
could  be  more  definite.  Certainly  those  who 
resemble  Him  here  will  recognize  Him  yonder. 
They  shall  see  His  face,  be  like  Him,  and  know 

13 


14  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

as  they  are  known.  God's  providence  must,  by 
some  unexplained  wisdom,  have  refrained  from 
preserving  any  detailed  record  of  that  childhood 
and  youth.  The  clumsy  apocryphal  attempts 
neither  have  the  sanction  of  tradition  nor  do  they 
give  anything  that  fits  His  mature  personality  as 
reflected  in  the  gospels.  We  are  left  to  read  be- 
tween the  so  few  written  lines  and  to  imagine  by 
His  public  ministry  what  He  was  in  those  days 
concerning  which  our  affectionate  curiosity  is  not 
gratified — those  "  other  things "  of  which  the 
earliest  were  hidden  safe  in  Mary's  heart. 

His  generation  all  unconscious  of  what  it  con- 
tained, persecutors  and  disciples  yet  in  their 
cradles,  the  Wonderful  One  grew  on.  A  babe,  a 
lad,  a  youth,  a  man — He  served  out  that  appren- 
ticeship of  task  and  trial  by  which  His  heavenly 
Father  prepared  Him  for  the  stupendous  burden, 
the  exceeding  sorrow,  the  absolute  victory.  With- 
out leaving  the  warrant  of  what  is  given  we  can 
surely  assert  something,  and  reverently  infer  some- 
what more,  concerning  the  expansion  of  that  white 
soul.  Remember  all  the  time  that  God  gave  that 
young  life  exactly  the  best  environment  for  His 
growth  in  wisdom.  He  trained  the. Son  of  man 
amid  simple  things  and  first  principles.  He  brought 
Him  to  the  closest  terms  with  the  average  life. 


THE  CARPENTER'S  SON  15 

He  familiarized  Him  with  the  daily  problems  of 
plain  men.  No,  the  throne  does  not  make  the 
prince.  Verily,  it  is  true,  "  God  hath  often  a  great 
share  in  a  little  house  " — a  little  stairway,  a  little 
room,  a  little  lattice,  a  little  closet.  Imagination 
itself  steps  softly  and  whispers,  "  It  was  here." 

At  Nazareth.  In  beautiful  Galilee,  on  the  south- 
ern ridge  of  Lebanon.  The  hills  rose  sharply 
and  high,  cut  by  the  rain  grooves.  There  were 
views — snow-silvered  Hermon  to  the  north,  to 
the  west  Carmel  and  the  Mediterranean  blue ; 
Tabor,  six  miles  southeast,  and  beyond  Gilead 
and  Gilboa.  The  Sea  of  Galilee  eighteen  miles 
to  the  east.  Less  than  a  Sabbath  day's  journey 
would  take  Him  to  nobler  prospects  than  that 
temple  turret  gave.  How  well  He  must  have 
studied  all  that  landscape !  It  seems  to  have  been 
a  rough  village.  A  pretty  place  may  be  a  very 
wicked  place ;  but  the  worst  can  be  a  good  dis- 
cipline. This  was  Christ's  school,  but  His  pres- 
ence did  not  make  it  hospitable.  There  He 
preached  first.  Twice  they  flouted  Him  and  once 
attempted  His  Hfe.  Their  unbelief  shut  the  door. 
Would  He  anger  none  now  ? 

It  was  a  dutiful  boyhood.  He  was  "  subject 
to  his  parents."  In  that  plain  household  He 
learned    about   moth   and   rust   and    the   much- 


i6  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

patched  garment.  He  found  room  there  to  keep 
the  two  great  commandments.  He  was  a  good 
son,  "  learning  obedience  "  and  "  in  all  things  Hke 
unto  His  brethren."  He  had  good  training ;  for 
Joseph  was  a  just  man,  and  His  mother  was — 
Mary.  He  searched  the  Scriptures  and  remem- 
bered them — their  broad  spiritual  wealth  was  His. 
There  He  found  the  solaces  of  the  interior  life, 
and  learned  that  hfe  is  not  by  bread  alone.  He 
found  quiet  shelters  for  meditation  (alas !  so  little 
our  practice).  The  solitude  was  populous  and 
prayer  as  natural  as  love.  He  was  near  to  all  the 
vital  breaths  of  the  open  country  and  to  those 
overtones  of  joy  and  peace — God's  obhgato — 
which  are  always  sounding  when  a  pure  heart 
listens.  With  what  fine  untarnished  senses  He 
appreciated  the  physical  world,  with  what  an  ear 
to  hear  He  caught  its  meaning !  So  in  the  cool 
of  that  day  whose  heat  and  travail  was  to  be 
so  terrible.  He  grew  in  stature — ("  He  hammered 
through  "). 

Who  will  learn,  may.  God's  best  schools  are 
not  always  those  most  brilliantly  endowed.  The 
foot  of  Mount  Tabor  was  better  than  the  feet  of 
Gamaliel.  Tarsus  was  yet  to  be  tutored  by  Naza- 
reth. Here  was  no  dreamer  theorizing  about  the 
masses.     He  was  one  of  the  mass.     He  earned 


THE  CARPENTER'S  SON  17 

His  living.  Once  our  text  was  a  sneer,  "  Is  not 
this  the  carpenter's  son  ?"  Mark  leaves  off  the 
last  word.  Either  is  true  to  the  fact.  They 
taunted  Him  with  being  a  common  man.  He 
had  a  trade  (as  all  Hebrew  boys  had,  usually 
their  father's),  and  He  supported  Himself  by  it. 
The  Prince  of  the  house  of  David,  the  Messiah, 
was  a  mechanic — a  house-builder.  They  all  knew 
Him  in  Nazareth — by  sight,  they  thought  they 
knew  Him — their  estimates  were  as  self-satisfied 
and  superficial  as  all  of  ours  are  apt  to  be  of  those 
who  work  for  us.  But  He  was  no  recluse.  The 
boys  and  neighbors  saw  Him  daily.  Many  had 
His  work  in  their  houses.  Perhaps  some  who 
went  to  cast  Him  down  over  that  hill  lived  in 
houses  He  had  built.     It  is  so  yet. 

No  doubt  the  bench  could  long  be  pointed  out 
where  He  wrought — the  quaint  Oriental  tools ; 
be  sure  none  others  ever  did  such  honest  work. 
He  wanted  no  wages  that  He  did  not  earn.  What 
would  you  not  give  for  a  chisel,  a  shaving,  from 
that  shed  ?  But  wherever  modest,  earnest  work 
is  done,  there  is  a  truer  souvenir  of  Christ  than 
any  relic  could  be.  Would  you  not  like  to  live 
in  a  house  He  had  built  ?  But  you  can  engage 
Him  to  build  your  dwelling  if  you  choose.  In- 
deed, except  the  Lord  build  your  house,  they 
2 


1 8  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

labor  in  vain  that  build  it — it  never  will  be  a 
home.  He  built  this  house.  This  is,  indeed,  the 
Builder  !  Not  clothed  in  soft  raiment.  The  hand 
that  was  pierced  for  our  sins  was  browned  and 
roughened  by  day  labor.  He  who  made  the 
earth  and  founded  it,  set  up  its  pillars  and  laid  the 
beams  of  His  chambers,  without  whom  was  not 
anything  made  that  hath  been  made,  has,  Him- 
self the  foundation,  reared  that  in  this  earth  which 
no  floods  shall  wrench  asunder  nor  torrents  un- 
dermine. Divine  Lord  !  Thou  whom  the  builders 
rejected,  Thou  glorious  architect  and  artisan  in 
one,  build  us  into  that  temple,  which  out  of  the 
quarry  of  the  ages  rises  toward  the  day  of  the 
topstone  and  the  shouting. 

Many  of  the  instances  which  pointed  His  teach- 
ings came  out  of  our  Lord's  experience  as  a 
craftsman, — the  man  who  did  not  count  the  cost, 
the  man  who  built  on  the  sand.  In  that  frugal 
home  He  knew  the  pathos  of  daily  economy, 
work  to  do  not  only,  but  to  find,  the  taxes  to 
meet,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  cotter's  frugal  task. 
He  helped  Mary  to  contrive  for  all  those  brothers 
and  sisters,  doubtless  often  telling  her :  "  Our 
Father  knows  that  we  have  need  of  all  these 
things."  We  can  see  one  reason  why  He  was 
drawn   toward    that   Bethany   household.     Mary 


THE  CARPENTER'S  SON  19 

had  always  found  Him  so  wise  and  willing,  no 
wonder  that  she  said  at  Cana,  "  Whatsoever  He 
saith  unto  you,  do  it." 

Christ  feels  for  the  widow  and  the  fatherless 
and  for  all  who  earn  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of 
their  brow.  What  contempt  that  royal  workman's 
way  pours  upon  all  pride  of  ease  and  luxury! 
Tasks  that  He  so  beautified  and  beatified  let  none 
now  call  common.  That  carpenter's  shop  was  a 
thing  that  angels  looked  into,  singing  new  praises. 
The  throne  exchanged  for  the  workbench !  Well 
might  the  sneer  at  "the  carpenter"  have  frozen 
on  the  lips  that  framed  it.  Blessed  testimony 
even  of  the  blind  and  captious !  The  derision  of 
the  Nazarenes  is  the  ascription  of  Christendom. 

Two  great  questions  I  ask  you  to  dwell  upon 
for  a  little  longer :  First,  that  manhood  is  superior 
to  circumstances.  He  who  will  follow  the  King's 
Son  may  well  cross  that  lowly  threshold  to  see 
how  the  tedious  unites  with  the  heroic.  A  true 
soul  does  not  worry  about  an  arena.  That  remote 
village,  that  cottage,  those  hill  paths,  sufficed  a 
Saviour's  thirty  years  of  preparation  !  He  needed 
no  further  apparatus  of  goodness.  No  drudgery 
delayed  His  full  growth.  Unanxious  He  waited 
till  that  work  was  done.  There  He  thought  out 
and   wrought   out   the    beatitudes,  first   showing 


20  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

piety  at  home   and  requiting  His  parents.      Re- 
member, if  you  think  your  horizon  narrowed : — 

«  Just  such  as  I  He  trod  this  earth, 
With  every  human  load,  but  sin." 

No  matter  if  your  hfe  is  hidden — if  it  is  "  hid  with 
Christ  in  God."     SimpHcity  may  find  fehcity. 

It  also  teaches  us  the  dignity  of  work.  Idleness 
is  a  sin.  Only  a  worker  is  respectable — every 
other  is  a  moral  pauper.  It  is  worker  or  shirker. 
Christ  honored  the  royal  law  of  labor.  He  knew 
real  things  and  was  not  a  charge  to  the  world. 
He  came  ''  to  make  the  best  that  the  world  knows 
native  to  the  humblest."  Coming  to  regenerate 
society,  He  never  implied  that  "  the  world  owes 
every  man  a  living,"  whether  he  earns  it  or  not. 
He  came  to  serve.  The  gospel  of  the  Mechanic 
refuses  those  who  refuse  a  man's  task.  It  ennobles 
as  it  enables  the  toilers  of  the  world — and  gives 
an  evangel  to  the  loom,  the  bench,  the  forge, 
''  that  they  may  be  with  the  King  for  his  work." 
The  bone  and  sinew  of  the  nation  are  in  brawny 
arms  matched  with  brave  hearts.  Whatever 
honors  labor  blesses  the  land,  and  all  that  de- 
grades this  debases  that.  Christ  is  the  friend  of 
all  who  toil  and  pray.  A  workingman  Himself, 
He  cares  for  the  aching  eyes  and  tired  fingers,  and 


THE  CARPENTER'S  SON  21 

says,  "  Come  unto  me,  ye  that  labor,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest."  He  arrays  Himself  against  the 
oppressor  and  the  cheat — against  him  who  wants 
another's  work  without  paying  for  it,  and  against 
him  who  wants  another's  pay  without  working  for 
it.  He  is  the  staunch  ally  of  the  honest  toiler, 
and  says  of  every  one  such,  *'  The  same  is  my 
brother." 


Ill 

THE   TOWER   OF   SILOAM 


Ill 

THE  TOWER   OF   SILOAM 

"  Suppose  ye  that  these  Galileans  were  sinners  above  all  the 
Galileans,  because  they  suffered  such  things  ?  I  tell  you,  Nay : 
but,  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish.  Or  those 
eighteen,  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell,  and  slew  them, 
think  ye  that  they  were  sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt  in 
Jerusalem?     I  tell  you,  Nay." — Luke  xiii.  2-5. 

These  questions  and  their  answer  affirm  cer- 
tain deep  and  necessary  distinctions  concerning 
the  moral  government  of  God,  and  to  establish 
these  distinctions  and  hold  them  fast  can  dispose 
of  much  that  always  will  baffle  a  hasty  and  im- 
patient interpretation  of  earth's  events,  and  can 
vitally  enlighten  and  encourage  us  amid  their 
intricacies  of  trouble  and  surprise. 

The  distinction  to  be  made  is  that  which  lies 
between  the  two  features  and  departments  of 
divine  law — the  one  outward  and  physical,  with 
its  results  consummated  here ;  and  the  other 
inward  and  moral,  with  its  issues  and  sanctions 
largely  postponed. 

For,  note  carefully  just  what  Christ  said.     He 

25 


26  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

was  speaking  of  "  interpreting  the  time,"  with  its 
especial  pubhc  warnings  and  its  especial  signifi- 
cance and  preluding  of  some  mighty  event ;  and 
some  who  heard  Him  immediately  mentioned  the 
recent  official  murder  by  which  Pilate  had  made 
an  example  of  certain  Galileans,  and  to  terrorize 
the  restless  agitators  of  Jerusalem  had  smitten  a 
group  of  these,  mingling  as  it  were  their  blood 
with  that  of  the  sacrifices  to  which  they  had 
gathered.  The  mention  of  these  men  to  Christ 
carried,  perhaps,  the  suggestion  that  they  were 
some  radical  fellow  provincials  of  Himself,  who, 
for  temerity  against  the  existing  order  of  things, 
had  paid  as  He  yet  might  pay.  He  takes  it  up 
and  adds  yet  another  current  instance.  With  the 
reserved  funds  of  the  temple,  arbitrarily  seized, 
Pilate  had  been  constructing  an  aqueduct  into 
Jerusalem.  The  chief  Jews  had  violently  pro- 
tested, and  when  at  Siloam  a  tower  fell,  crushing 
eighteen  of  the  workmen,  it  had  been  pronounced 
a  special  visitation. 

Our  Lord  insisted  that  the  incident  of  such 
exceptional  deaths  was  not  to  be  misinterpreted 
in  such  a  way  as  to  turn  attention  from  general 
public  guilt  and  its  general  retribution.  The 
dramatic  exception  was  not  to  be  pressed  too  far. 
These  mangled  men  were  but  instances  of  what 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  27 

all  pride  and  perversity  should  meet.  These 
violent  warnings  were  but  specimens  of  the  catas- 
trophe already  rising  cloudy  out  of  the  west. 

He  meant  that  no  one  should  exonerate  him- 
self from  partnership  in  the  universal  accounta- 
bility. Harsher  calamities  were  impending,  which 
nothing  but  a  profound  and  popular  repentance 
could  avert.  Change  or  die,  was  the  alternative 
for  all  men  of  Judaea  or  Galilee — nay,  for  all 
peoples  and  generations — until  the  final  finality 
of  judgment.  Everywhere  disorder  is  the  outward 
prophecy  and  anticipative  symptom  of  doom. 

We  well  may  note  how  aptly  the  word  of  Christ 
reads  the  moral  sky  and  interprets  current  affairs. 
He  spoke  to  the  times,  and  the  incidents  and 
accidents  of  the  day — these,  here,  the  Jericho  road, 
the  tribute  penny,  the  ostentatious  givers,  the 
unctuous  sanctimony  of  the  Pharisees,  the  carcass, 
and  the  eagles.  It  was  direct,  vivid,  and  no  won- 
der the  truth  made  a  sensation  as  He  let  it  in  so 
full  upon  traditional  sham  and  godless  religion. 
The  gossiping  conclusion  about  the  massacre  and 
the  falling  masonry  He  showed  to  be  superficial 
and  evasive.  Then  surely  we  are  to  have  better 
than  a  conventional  and  newspaper  philosophy 
upon  earth's  happenings,  and,  instructed  by  Him 
who  discerns  the  event,  are  to  interpret  nothing  as 


28  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

isolated  from  final  purpose  and  common  concern. 
Daily  divine  providence  writes  upon  the  walls 
that  which  "  the  wise  shall  understand." 

But,  further  and  especially,  Christ  taught  that 
"  these  Galileans  "  and  "  those  eighteen  "  were  not 
thereby  shown  to  be  sinners  and  '*  offenders  above 
all  men."  And  therein  He  corrected  the  notion 
that  material  injuries  to  the  bodies  or  estates  of 
men  have  any  constant  relation  to  their  moral 
characters  and  furnish  any  final  criterion  of  these. 
These  were  not  hurt  because  they  were  worse ; 
others  had  not  escaped  because  they  were  better. 
"  I  tell  you.  Nay." 

It  opens  a  gateway  upon  an  avenue  of  profound 
reflection,  whereon  for  a  little  let  us  go ;  finding,  I 
trust,  some  solvents  for  questions  otherwise  too 
hard,  some  antidotes  for  satanic  suggestions 
against  God,  some  grateful  offsets  for  things  that 
now  seem  inscrutably  against  us.  Suffering  may 
be  a  near  or  a  remote  consequence ;  it  is  by  no 
means  the  measure  of  the  sin  of  the  particular 
sufferer. 

I.  Christ's  doctrine  that  day  was  the  plainest 
possible  assertion  of  a  truth  that  we  often  confuse 
— namely,  that  physical  law  and  moral  law  and 
their  penalties  and  rewards  are  highly  distinct. 

He  emphasizes  the  moment  of  this  distinction. 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  29 

By  "  distinct "  I  do  not  mean  unrelated,  uncon- 
nected, but  so  far  separate  in  form  and  intent,  in 
method  and  purpose,  that  we  must  not  mix  them. 
Both  of  these  orders  and  their  issues  are  of  and 
under  God,  and  reveal  Him  ;  nevertheless,  mechan- 
ical means  and  results  are  separate  from  spiritual. 

Physical  laws,  the  forms  of  sense,  and  the  pro- 
gramme of  matter,  these  are  different  in  kind  from 
the  controls  and  vindications  of  that  inner  being 
which  partakes  of  the  divine  nature.  There  are 
analogies  and  correspondences  all  along  the  line, 
but  nowhere  identity  or  confusion.  The  body  of 
the  universe  and  the  living  spirit  are  two  realities. 
Physics  and  psychology  are  not  the  same.  They 
are  together,  but  they  are  dual. 

God's  systemed  and  consistent  ways  of  control 
(which,  viewed  from  the  under  and  empirical  side, 
we  call  by  the  impersonal  and  abstract  term  of 
"  laws  ")  are  related  in  the  unity  of  that  control ; 
but  the  two  elements  deal  with  different  areas  and 
in  separate  ways  appropriate  to  each.  Each  of  us 
has  in  himself  a  synopsis  of  these  two  realms  and 
dispensations,  as  covering  the  one  his  bodily  and 
outward  part,  and  the  other  his  immaterial  and 
immortal  part.  We  are  constantly  and  properly 
warned  of  the  fallacy  which  lies  in  any  physical 
illustration  of  moral  fact.     As  a  suggestion  it  may 


30  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

be  useful ;  as  a  complete  parallel  it  always  fails. 
Quantity  and  quality  deal  with  terms  not  inter- 
changeable. 

There  is  a  certain  set  of  estabhshed  facts,  con- 
formity to  which  makes  the  laws  of  bodily  health. 
As  solid  and  regular,  but  quite  other,  there  is  a  set 
of  facts  conditioning  character.  Now,  by  the 
present  intimacy  of  our  souls  with  our  bodies, 
these  two  codes,  though  entirely  in  different  planes, 
do  condition  each  other — they  mutually  (recipro- 
cally) act  and  react.  Moral  sanity  concerns  bodily 
soundness.  As  the  sky  tinges  the  sea,  so  vigor 
has  to  do  with  virtue.  But  all  this  ordinary  asso- 
ciation by  no  means  merges  the  identities  of  the 
two  spheres.  The  relation  of  the  individual  soul 
with  its  present  body,  though  so  close  and  reflex, 
is,  after  all,  but  incidental.  The  station  of  the 
engineer  upon  the  particular  engine  is  not  essential. 
The  local  is  not  the  necessary.  The  soul  is  in 
but  not  of  its  convenient  but  changeable  body. 
The  physical  may  be  transferred.  Bodily,  we 
"  die  daily."  Metempsychosis  is  not  merely  possi- 
ble, but  certain. 

And  as  it  is  with  physical  law  in  this  nearest 
approach  to  our  spirits,  so  it  is  with  that  physical 
law  at  large.  Our  embodiment  has  this  double 
significance  of  both  the  nearness  and  the  separate- 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  31 

ness  of  life  and  its  vessels.  We  are  at  once 
incarnate  and  supercarnal.  However  closely  mun- 
dane passions  crowd  us,  our  souls  are  taller  and 
look  over  their  heads.  The  transient  is  adjudged 
now  ;  the  permanent  waits. 

Translating  objective  and  subjective  realities, 
each  into  the  terms  of  the  other,  we  must  (if 
careful)  distinguish  their  essential  unlikeness,  dis- 
cerning between  outward  and  inward  success, 
between  inner  and  outer  penalty  and  reward.  Un- 
derstanding this  division,  we  must  keep  in  mind 
that  the  physical  side  is  limited  by  physics — it  is 
adjusted  to  the  present  only — its  sanctions  are 
insistently  temporal ;  but  the  cardinal  soul  is 
under  vital  laws,  to  which  this  estate  is  but  the 
first  chapter,  and  whose  compensations  move  in 
circles  to  which  the  article  of  death  is  but  a  mere 
item.  God's  physical  justice  is  swift  and  immedi- 
ate, but  His  moral  justice  advances  "with  slow 
pace  and  silent  feet."  One  is  prompt,  the  other  is 
long-suffering ;  but  both  are  sure.  The  slower 
mills  grind  finest.  The  casual  exceptions — the 
immediate  and  signal  punishments  in  kind — but 
show  that  those  who  disregard  moral  law  are  apt 
to  disregard  physical,  and  these  reveal  those. 
But  still  the  inferences,  though  they  do  recognize 
judgment  as  already  proceeding,  cannot  estimate 


32  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

that  which  is  deferred,  nor  estimate  the  ratio  of 
guilt,  nor  safely  attempt  a  theodicy  {i.  e.,  an  inter- 
pretation of  total  divine  justice)  from  what  is 
revealed  in  physical  penalty  of  physical  transgres- 
sion. 

The  fact  is  premonitory,  but  its  full  implications 
still  remain  conjectural.  The  skein  is  too  tangled ; 
the  problem  is  too  involved.  The  unveiling  of  all 
the  details — the  real  and  complete  evidence — 
awaits  the  ultimate  day.  When  all  is  not  accessi- 
ble, opinion  cannot  be  conclusive.  Sodom  does 
not  always  burn,  not  every  Korah  fats  the  jaws  of 
the  earth ;  but  the  readiness  with  which  we  make 
coincidence  moral  shows  our  intuition  of  a  finer 
adjudication,  in  which  the  sumptuousness  of  Dives 
and  the  hunger  of  Lazarus  shall  be  measured  in 
other  scales  than  those  of  time. 

II.  And  Christ's  "  I  tell  you.  Nay "  warns  us 
against  any  inferences  that  substitute  the  apparent 
for  the  real — warns  us  against  inferring  either  too 
much  or  too  little — warns  us  that  inferences  may 
be  inconsequent — warns  us  both  to  expect  and  to 
await.  The  parallax  is  too  short  for  us  to  antici- 
pate the  total  issue ;  too  long  for  us  to  doubt  it. 

The  Greek  tragedy — all  the  literature  of  tragedy 
— grasps  the  intuition  of  retributive  justice,  and 
lies   all   in    the    realm  of  conscience.     Its  poetic 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  33 

justice  is  not  imaginary,  but  it  is  imagined  and  its 
oracles  are  obscure,  if  (and  only  if)  we  think  that 
present  reality  conforms  to  its  futuritive  dramatiza- 
tion. The  interlaced  facts  reserve  the  full  decision. 
That  both  comes  and  tarries. 

"Some  men's  sins  are  evident,  going  before  unto 
judgment;  and  some  men  also  they  follow  after. 
In  like  manner  also  there  are  good  works  that  are 
evident;  and  such  as  are  otherwise  cannot  be  hid  " 
(i  Tim.  V.  24,  25).  There  are  two  sets  of  sanctions 
suitmg  two  phases  of  law.  Just  so  far  as  a  man 
knows  and  keeps  either  set  of  laws — the  spiritual 
and  the  physical — ^just  so  far  will  he  reap  the 
blessings  possible  to  that  set.  Temporal  obedi- 
ence, temporary  blessing.  Moral  obedience,  moral 
blessing.  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth."  '*  Each 
seed  after  its  own  kind."  The  one  obedience 
ought  to  imply  the  other,  but  does  not  necessarily 
involve  it. 

Every  kind  of  law  is  on  his  side  who  keeps  it, 
and  every  kind  of  law  is  against  him  who  breaks 
it.  The  law  of  gravity,  of  explosives,  of  health, 
of  contract,  of  commerce,  of  art — these  laws, 
heeded,  become  allies.  To  observe  public  mo- 
rality finds  public  approval.  And  he  who  obeys 
God  has  God's  approval.  All  obedience,  so  far 
as  such,  works  its  appropriate  results.  There 
3 


34  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

are  no  gratuitous  or  uncovenanted  rewards  nor 
any  accidental  penalties.  The  goodness  and  se- 
verity of  each  law  is  for  itself  and  not  for  another. 
This  is  absolute  in  moral  law,  and  (however  com- 
plicated by  the  interference  of  other  unjust  wills) 
is  the  tendency  in  what  is  physical.  And  the 
bondage  of  corruption  in  which  ignorance  and 
violence  distrain  natural  tendency  is  not  always 
to  endure. 

Distinguish.  A  profane  man  may  be  robust ;  a 
false  man  may  be  an  artist ;  a  covetous  man  may  be 
skillful ;  and  a  man  may  be  devout,  truthful,  gentle, 
brave,  and  yet  (under  the  operation  of  laws  these 
virtues  do  not  concern)  may  fail  in  business  or  die 
of  consumption.  Lord  Bacon  was  the  father  of 
modern  philosophy,  but  he  took  bribes.  Marl- 
borough never  lost  a  battle,  but  he  embezzled. 
Keats  died  in  poverty.  Bunyan  was  a  jail  bird. 
McKinley  was  shot. 

Material  success  is  no  final  token  of  God's 
favor,  nor  material  failure  of  His  frown.  Approval 
for  one  kind  of  obedience  abridges  no  penalty  of 
other  transgression.  Penury  and  pain  without 
piety  have  no  promises  as  such.  Of  all  rogues 
it  is  the  duller  part  who  enter  prison.  They  are 
not  necessarily  "  offenders  above  all."  Inferior 
shrewdness  (such  is  the  law  of  shrewdness)  allows 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  35 

dull  rascality  to  get  its  deserts  more  promptly. 
Thus  the  smart  outdo  the  stupid — that  proves 
only  itself.  If  the  "  wicked  prize  itself  buys  out 
the  law,"  the  more  wicked  it,  though  terrestrially 
it  escapes  "  unwhipt."  But,  saith  Shakespeare, 
"  'Tis  not  so  above." 

*'  Who  did  sin  that  this  man  was  born  blind — 
he  or  his  parents  ?"  "  Neither,"  said  Christ.  The 
long  circuit  which  transmits  the  shock  of  remote 
sin  lies  too  deep  for  tracing.  The  problem  is  too 
involved  for  such  glib  judgments.  Sin's  disaster 
somewhere,  and  a  race  involved  in  the  calamity — 
the  innocent  and  the  guilty  all  cousins  in  suffering, 
but  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  woeful  spectacle 
not  yet  unsealed.  Everything  is  furnished  for 
reclamation,  nothing  for  curiosity.  In  the  race- 
unity  of  its  trouble,  human  vision  is  made  to  await 
the  consummation  which  is  promised  but  not  yet 
revealed.  The  law  of  sin  and  death  operating 
even  upon  those  (as  babes)  who  have  not  sinned 
individually  proves  that  God  for  this  present  re- 
gards mankind,  and  deals  with  it,  as  a  vital  unit. 
It  is  not  simple,  but  it  is  evident.  Long  ago  the 
blow  fell  upon  corporate  man  of  which  all  mortal 
ills  are  but  the  rowen — behold  a  race  sin-smitten 
and  the  irretrievable  physical  penalty ;  but  behold 
also  a  spiritual  intervention  from  a  plane  above 


36  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

physics ;  restoration  by  a  Redeemer,  and  the 
trophies  thereof!  There  is  no  collision  nor  clash- 
ing of  law  or  plan.  Exactly  the  seen  and  the 
unseen  move  in  parallel  obedience.  Man  is  the 
only  offender — man  the  law-breaker.  But  to  de- 
cipher and  trace  responsibility  and  to  assign  phys- 
ical consequence  to  moral  cause,  even  through 
a  third  and  fourth  generation,  is  beyond  our 
wisdom. 

The  ethical  impulse  must  associate  evils  with  evil, 
but,  save  to  search  and  judge  our  own  misdoings, 
we  must  endure  and  wait.  All  that  is  abnormal  is 
akin ;  further  we  cannot  go.  Nature  cannot  tell 
us.  Sphinx-like  she  looks  with  calm,  impartial 
face  upon  moral  good  and  evil.  The  crime  she 
punishes  is  ignorance — she  is  physical  and  keeps 
neutrality.  She  is  a  parable  of  merciless  law  and 
a  declaration  of  outer  justice  alone.  In  this  she 
throws  the  spirit  back  upon  its  Maker  for  those 
other  laws  that  heal  those  who  meet  them  fully, 
and  turns  us  toward  those  eyes  that  live.  So  we 
are  bidden  "  to  change  our  minds  "  from  that  evil 
which  destroys  unto  that  mercy  which  saves. 

III.  Christ  used  the  GaHlean  slaughter  and  the 
Siloam  accident  to  teach  a  far  broader  lesson  than 
they  grasped  who  sought  to  explain  these. 

We  are  to  shun  a  mischievous  moralizing  which 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM  37 

once  characterized  a  certain  sort  of  Sunday-school 
book.  There  are  present  inner  penalties,  but 
they  are  not  oftenest  shown.  The  bad  boy  does 
not  always  drown,  nor  the  good  boy  get  rich. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  as  nearsighted  to 
reckon  that  smooth-going  sin  is  immune  and  en- 
viable. This  is  the  paradox  and  puzzle  of  com- 
fortable and  complacent  evil,  but  the  very  "  pros- 
perity of  fools  shall  destroy  them."  It  was  the 
fallacy  that  underlay  the  superficial  arguments  of 
Job's  three  friends ;  that  character  is  a  matter  of 
circumstantial  evidence.  This  is  the  monotonous 
pessimism  which  for  our  warning  is  illustrated  in 
the  major  part  of  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes.  The 
plaint  is  specious  from  one  standpoint,  but  it  is  a 
submarine  conception  of  the  Giver  of  life !  It 
puts  the  truisms  of  this  world  in  place  of  the 
truth  that  God  will  overrule  it  all  for  those  who 
wait  for  Him.  Ecclesiastes  dwells  in  common- 
place misery,  dismal,  but  not  the  whole  matter ; 
it  is  as  little  like  Christianity  as  the  catacombs  are 
like  a  sunrise. 

Mercy  moves  in  its  own  orbit.  Each  side  of 
tangible  sin  keeps  its  own  boundaries.  Inner 
forgiveness  does  not  remit  overt  penalty.  Res- 
titution amends  some  offenses,  but  also  some 
scars  are  worn  to  the  grave.     Rescue  does  not 


38  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

restore  the  external  status.  Therefore  a  true  re- 
pentance from  evil  as  such  does  not  stipulate  the 
abatement  of  outer  consequences.  A  drunkard 
reforms,  his  soul  heals,  but  he  nevertheless  goes 
to  an  earlier  grave.  A  Frederick  Robertson 
teaches  his  generation,  but  his  mind  is  strung  too 
tight  for  his  body,  and  he  dies  at  thirty-seven. 
The  Lord  put  away  David's  sin,  but  his  child 
died.  Ahab  averted  immediate  penalty,  but  he 
was  not  accepted.  The  fruitless  tree,  in  the  para- 
ble just  following  our  text,  was  respited  but  not 
spared. 

The  tendency  is  that  "  the  wicked  shall  not  live 
out  half  their  days,"  but  some  grow  gray  in  evil. 
The  tendency  is  that  "  the  righteous  shall  still 
bring  forth  fruit  in  old  age,"  but  sometimes  high 
obedience  has  assured  martyrdom.  We  may 
indulge  no  theory  of  special  providences  that 
evades  the  precision  of  physical  effects.  Even 
miracles  would  but  confirm  the  rule. 

Human  law  touches  little  else  save  that  which 
concerns  man  in  his  person  and  property ;  it  has  to 
leave  the  deepest  moral  vindication  for  the  world 
to  come.  Both  for  warning  and  for  consolation 
we  are  taught  to  look  toward  celestial  justice  as 
the  intrinsic  thing.  Disasters  come.  A  fire  de- 
vours  here,  an  earthquake  there.     Cyclone   and 


THE  TOWER  OF  SILOAM 


39 


lightning  and  rain  and  sunshine  fall  upon  the  just 
and  the  unjust.  The  train  thunders  into  the 
collision  bearing  blasphemer  and  babe.  The  end 
is  riot  here.  Looking  past  these  relentless  shocks 
of  mechanism,  past  the  grimly  beautiful  exactness 
of  the  physical  order,  looking  on  to  His  moral 
disclosures  of  the  ends  which  transcend  mere 
force,  we  shall  escape  both  a  false  confidence  and 
a  needless  foreboding. 

"  Nothing  has  the  just  to  lose 
By  worlds  on  worlds  destroyed." 

By  and  by,  hearing  the  upper  parts,  we  shall 
catch  the  harmony  that  now  is  figured  only  with 
this  mysterious  bass.  We  shall  know  how  even 
stress  and  pain  could  cooperate  for  good  to  them 
that  loved  God.  The  convergence  of  laws  will  be 
seen.  The  clouds  appear  to  be  in  the  same  sky 
with,  the  sun  and  stars,  but  the  vapors  are  really 
only  of  the  earth.  Pain  is  of  this  atmosphere ; 
peace  of  that.  Therefore  we  await  emancipation 
from  these  mingled  conditions,  seeking  His  esti- 
mate who  can  carry  us  through  all  the  surprises 
of  mortality,  and  by  the  law  of  the  spirit  of  life  for 
ever  free  us  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death. 


IV 

JOHN'S   THREE   DEFINITIONS   OF 

GOD 


IV 

JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD 

"  These  are  written,  that  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ." — John  xx.  31. 

Of  all  the  original  twelve  apostles,  the  apostle 
John  left  for  all  time  the  legacy  that  is  of  the 
deepest  and  most  varied  wealth. 

The  figure  and  temperament  and  acts  of  Peter 
are  far  more  conspicuous  in  that  scenery  of 
Christ's  century  which  is  sketched  in  the  first  five 
New  Testament  books.  The  life  and  writing  of 
the  apostle  Paul  occupies  a  larger  and  more  obvi- 
ous place  in  the  new  Scripture.  With  either  of 
these  men  we  feel  more  intimately  acquainted. 
Their  personality  and  motion  carries  more  of 
windage  and  tangible  impact. 

It  is  only  by  closer  study  that  we  come  to  feel 
the  potency  and  draught  of  the  great  son  of 
Zebedee.  His  manner  and  meaning  and  message 
require  a  more  reflective  analysis.  He  is  less 
dramatic  and  apparent.  The  sweep  of  his  thought 
and  purpose  comes  more  slowly  to  our  appreci- 
ation.    But  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  found 

43 


44  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

in  the  personality  and  grasp  of  the  fourth  evangel- 
ist an  instrument  and  an  interpreter  whose  mysti- 
cal insight  and  far-sighted  comprehension  gathered 
and  conveyed  the  truth  of  truth  with  a  sureness 
and  a  sublimity  that  shines  on  through  the  ages 
as  the  star  Rigel  shines  in  the  belt  of  Orion,  or 
Vega  in  the  constellation  Lyra.  Immutable  in 
the  records  which  translate  the  Son  of  God  into 
the  language  of  adoring  wonder  and  absolute 
loyalty,  indispensable  to  our  ever-deepening  and 
never  completed  apprehension  of  that  supreme 
and  all-manifesting  hfe,  the  words  of  him  who  lay 
on  Jesus'  breast  are  alive  with  that  contact,  and 
impart  the  palpitating  love  which  there  they 
learned. 

It  was  his  life  to  make  the  world  know  his 
Lord  as  he  knew  him.  Christ  imparted  Himself 
to  this  profound  and  capable  nature  that  through 
that  nature  He  might  evermore  convey  to  souls 
like-minded  the  power  and  scope  of  His  per- 
petual interpretation  of  God  and  of  man,  of  crea- 
tion and  eternity.  Of  all  those  deeds  John  was 
an  observer — the  wonders,  the  mercies,  the  im- 
maculate sorrows,  the  paradox  of  the  cross,  the 
tenantless  and  angel-ordered  grave  with  its  ten- 
ure as  impotent  as  Pilate's  seal,  and  its  testimony 
as    solid  as   the   rock   upon   which  streamed  the 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD       45 

resurrection  light.  John  knew  all  the  actors  and 
agents  of  those  surcharged  years.  He  knew 
GaHlee  and  Judaea,  priest  and  centurion,  the  home 
at  Bethany,  the  family  of  Nazareth. 

He  heard  and  held  the  parables,  the  prayers, 
the  promises,  the  prophecies.  He  was  upon  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  and  at  Olivet.  He 
knew  Stephen  and  Paul.  He  understood  Peter 
and  Luke  and  James  the  Just.  Thomas  and 
Philip  were  his  fellows.  He  shared  the  wonders 
of  Pentecost.  He  met  the  furnace-blasts  of  perse- 
cution. He  survived  his  comrades,  and  saw  the 
seed  flung  abroad  and  taking  root  in  the  convic- 
tions of  the  complicated  and  changing  world. 

And  at  last,  ripe  for  the  task,  remembering,  re- 
flecting, listening,  with  an  eagle  vision  that  looked 
down  upon  the  world  and  time,  and  with  a  flight 
that  swam  in  the  upper  and  cloudless  skies,  he 
wrote.  The  last  of  the  twelve  witnesses,  and 
ready  when  the  call  should  come  for  the  renewed 
visible  companionship  of  the  First  and  the  Last 
and  the  Living  One,  he  put  to  record  that  which 
he  had  heard  and  seen  and  handled  of  the  Word 
of  Life.  It  was  mature,  competent — it  gave  the 
inwardness  as  one  soul  had  treasured  and  proved 
it,  and  it  is  holy  with  His  presence  who  breathes 
through  its  transcendant   thoughts.     The  whole 


46  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

portrayal  and  portraiture  is  John's  epitome  of  the 
things  which  were  most  surely  believed  by  those 
most  competent  to  try  and  to  tell.  It  is  also 
Christ's  epitome  of  the  beloved  disciple.  For 
what  can  understand,  what  reconstruct,  what  can 
prophesy,  what  impart,  what  can  endure,  like  love  ! 

The  personahty  of  this  profound  and  intense 
believer  and  follower  is  revealed  in  what  he  wrote, 
it  is  also  veiled  by  it.  John  is  throughout,  but 
he  is  retired  by  a  greater.  Yet  while  we  follow 
the  significance  of  the  gesture,  we  need  not  for- 
get him  whose  hand  points  us  to  the  object. 

What  John  saw  and  knew  and  felt  is  the  reflex 
proof  of  his  competency,  and  completes  his  testi- 
mony. The  witness  is  also  the  result  of  the 
truth  he  utters. 

What  John's  nature  was  is  shown  by  His  dis- 
cernment who  called  him.  What  his  training  was 
the  three  years  and  the  perhaps  threescore  that 
followed  give  evidence.  The  fisherman  neither 
explains  nor  hinders  the  philosopher.  For  phil- 
osopher he  was — loving  wisdom  and  attaining  it 
— surpassing  Plato,  and  so  all  others,  both  in  his 
material  and  his  use  of  it — handling  the  last  prob- 
lems of  being  and  divinity,  of  man  and  motive,  of 
event,  environment,  and  destiny.  He  does  not 
propound  problems,  he  solves  them,  and  not  an 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD       47 

interrogation,  but  an  exclamation  of  satisfied  joy 
punctuates  his  concluding  word !  To  him  fiiiis 
was  but  relative  and  terrestrial.  It  is  a  conjunc- 
tion which  implies  a  world  that  can  contain  all 
the  story.  Moreover  he  is  Baconian.  He  builds 
not  upon  propositions,  but  upon  events.  His  task 
is  to  expound  a  biography.  His  final  synthesis 
shows  how  the  best  that  ever  was  declares  the 
utmost  that  can  be. 

The  Incarnation  for  him  "  solves  all  questions 
in  the  world  and  out  of  it."  He  binds  the  sreat 
given  facts  of  Christ's  life  into  a  unity  and  reads 
them  as  a  whole.  He  sees  why  the  roots  bear 
the  fruits.  The  radical  thought  of  John  com- 
passes all  the  queries  and  quests  of  the  soul,  and 
"  What  know  we  greater  than  the  soul  ?"  is  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  modern  world  which,  not 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was  poet,  but  because 
he  was  that  too,  finds  its  most  vital  voice  in 
Alfred  Tennyson.  John  was  poet,  too,  and  so  the 
fisher  of  Galilee  gathers  the  greatest  both  of 
reason  and  of  rapture,  and  by  love  as  by  logic 
hath  us  in  the  net.  Human  utterance  may  fall 
below  his  search  and  sureness,  but  never  can  it 
surpass  them.  All  other  reasoning  is  but  a 
second  best,  and  commentary  upon  that  second 
best  fails  of  the  upper  springs. 


48  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

How  far  and  wide  and  high  John's  thought 
went — what  it  compassed  and  applied ;  what 
ranges  of  relation  it  beheld — this  appears  in  three 
great  declarations  and  definitions,  which,  under 
the  revelation  that  is  in  Christ,  he  made  concern- 
ing the  essential  and  immutable  nature  of  God. 
From  Him  of  whom  he  testified  "  in  Him  was 
life ;  and  the  life  was  the  light  of  men,"  he 
reached  out  and  up  to  the  thought  of  what  the 
ultimate  Being  is.  He  states  that  Being's  nature 
in  three  terms  of  its  active  demonstration.  What 
God  is,  responsive  intelligence  must  know  by  what 
He  does,  and  know  best  and  supremely  through 
His  nearest  and  most  commanding  and  most 
appealing  manifestation.  What  God  is,  in  His 
inmost  essence,  what  the  life  is  which  originates 
and  answers  our  life,  John  had  found  in  that  One 
whose  nature  was  to  him  the  revelation  of  the 
eternal  and  the  absolute.  Here  is  ontology.  And 
the  grandeur  and  finality  of  the  conceptions  is  the 
warrant  of  that  appreciation  of  Jesus  Christ  out 
of  which  they  grew. 

These  three  resolute  conclusions  are  :  "  God  is 
Light,"  "  God  is  Spirit,"  "  God  is  Love." 

These  are  final  truths ;  and  for  John's  grasp  of 
them,  all  that  he  wrote  being  in  evidence,  Christ 
accounts    and    Christ    only.     Every   estimate   of 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD        49 

God,  then  as  now,  is  colored  and  fashioned  by  the 
soul's  estimate  of  Christ.  Light,  spirit,  love; 
where  either  of  these  three  is,  there,  in  degree, 
God  is ;  and  where  God  is,  there  these  three  are. 
But  these  are  elements  of  personality  and  have 
no  reality  outside  of  that.  Our  capacity  to  know 
them  is  the  correspondence  between  us  and  the 
invisible  nature  which  is  before  and  under  and 
through  all  things. 

Light  is  a  motion  and  a  communication.  It  is 
a  creative  revelation.  It  is  a  thing,  and  darkness 
is  not  a  thing,  but  an  absence,  just  as  silence  is 
the  negation  of  sound.  A  finer  skill  in  physics 
may  yet  coordinate  or  even  identify  these  two  sets 
of  vibrations,  proving  that  sound  is  invisible  color, 
and  that  color  is  inaudible  sound.  Then  the  ear 
and  the  eye  are  complementary,  and  we  have  two 
senses  of  the  same  thing.  Then  sunlight  is  only 
music  in  an  upper  scale  and  harmony  is  a  vision. 
But  truth,  spoken  or  written,  is  still  communica- 
tion. Light  is  not  only  a  medium  and  an  agent, 
it  is  an  author.  Strictly,  the  ether  is  the  agent 
and  the  light  is  that  which  travels  it.  Sight  is  the 
effect  and  also  the  end  intended;  but  the  wire 
that  reddens  under  the  electric  charge,  and  the 
leaping  nerve  that  receives  the  charge — these  are 
not  electricity  itself  Force  is  not  an  agent,  but  a 
4 


50  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

manifestation — back  of  the  thrill  is  will.  The 
waves  are  messengers,  but  the  message  is  the 
communication  of  a  being  who  understands  how 
to  send  the  message  to  a  being  that  understands 
how  to  receive  it.  Light  is  the  communication 
of  being !  It  does  also  reach  and  affect  what  is 
irresponsive  and  unaware.  It  is  chemical  too,  but 
that  is  only  to  say  that 

"  God  fulfills  Himself  in  many  ways,'* 

and  is  not  without  effect  even  upon  those  who 
have  only  mineral  or  vegetable  hearts. 

John  gazed  deep  into  two  wonderful  eyes — his 
soul  saw  and  knew  that  it  was  seen — and  then 
feeling  the  source  of  infinite  beauty,  of  all  that 
creates  and  satisfies  vision,  even  the  inmost,  he 
wrote,  "  Whatsoever  doth  make  manifest  is  light." 
"  That  was  the  true  Light,  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world."  He  begins 
his  story  where  Genesis  began.  The  gospel,  too, 
opens  with  the  all-reveaHng  Light.  Creation  is 
one  with  Christ. 

Spirit  What  is  it?  What  is  it  not?  The 
soul,  which  cannot  define  itself  in  terms  of  the 
material  and  formal  world,  knows,  by  a  knowledge 
which  objects  may  illustrate,  and  so  were  meant 
to,  which  objects  at  once  answer  and  obey,  that  it 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD        51 

transcends  these,  and  that  they  can  neither  origi- 
nate nor  deny  it.  It  is  mind,  it  is  will,  it  is  energy. 
It  is  parentage  and  birthright.  John  saw  sense 
and  substance  obey  the  authority  of  a  spirit.  He 
recalled  that  Christ  said,  "  I  will  not  leave  you 
orphans,  I  will  come  to  you,"  and  thereupon, 
under  the  conviction  that  the  Unseen  had  re- 
vealed the  compatibility  of  spirit  with  a  veiling 
and  Hmiting  form,  and  that  he  had  beheld  the 
glory  of  the  Word  "  by  whom  all  things  were 
made','  he  wrote,  "  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any 
time;  the  only  begotten  Son,  .  .  .  He  hath  de- 
clared Him "  and  reported  His  word,  "  He  that 
hath  seen  Me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

It  is  spirit  "  that  ordereth  all  things."  Not  a 
soulless  world,  but  personal  mind,  all  in  all. 
Cause  is  back  of  process.  Motion  is  the  answer 
of  life.  Creation  is  a  garment.  The  bodies  out 
of  which  we  peer  are  but  clothing.  Nature  is 
instrumental,  and  is  always  in  the  ablative  case. 
God  is  the  nominative.  Prayer  is  the  highest  act 
of  self-affirmation. 

'*  Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  spirit  with  spirit  can 
meet; 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and  feet." 

God  is  Love.  To  love  is  to  live.  Really  to  live 
is  to  seek  not  one's  own.     Paul  was  taught  by  the 


52  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

same  teacher  in  that  Hfe  whose  ideal  had  its  utter- 
ance in  the  1 3th  chapter  of  the  Corinthian  letter. 
The  various  testimony  is  providential — its  au- 
thority is  one.  "  He  that  loveth  not  knoweth 
not  God."  "  Every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of 
God."     Love  is  procreative. 

But  John  had  seen  love  bear  and  bleed.  He 
knew  love  face  to  face.  He  understood  what  love 
would  do  to  bring  itself  near  to  a  world  that  lust 
had  wrecked,  and  to  heal  the  hearts  that  ache  by 
love's  loss.  Did  Plato,  or  Aristotle,  or  Leibnitz, 
or  Kant,  or  Bacon  ever  uphold  such  an  all-encom- 
passing finality  ?  Here  is  a  greater  than  Newton, 
for  love  is  the  law  of  the  soul's  gravity.  Love  is 
of  God  and  unto  God.  "  He  that  abideth  in  love 
abideth  in  God,  and  God  abideth  in  him." 

There  were  three  qualities  or  characteristics  of 
the  apostle  John  that  were  reflected  and  summed 
up  in  these  three  profound  and  crystal  affirmations. 
These  personal  habits  or  aptitudes  are  shown  in 
the  temper  and  bearing  of  all  that  he  wrote.  He 
inadvertently  yet  entirely  reveals  his  own  nature 
in  what  he  pens.  It  was  because  John  was  him- 
self so  susceptible  to  certain  influences  that  he 
was  so  fit  to  impart  them. 

First,  he  is  shown  to  have  been  remarkably 
intuitive  and  reflective.     The  deepest   chords  of 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD        53 

his  being  responded  in  music  to  the  tones  of  his 
Master's  discourse,  and  to  the  power  and  pathos 
of  His  deeds.  To  his  rapt  and  intense  meditation 
the  simplest  and  most  deHcate  hints  were  seminal 
and  apocalyptic.  Every  fact  is  sacred  to  him 
upon  which  the  realization  of  Christ's  nature  and 
errand  is  confirmed.  He  seized  the  very  spirit  of 
that  life  so  lofty  in  its  loneliness  and  so  tenderly 
true.  He  appropriated  so  fully  the  subjective  and 
essential  thought  of  Christ  that  he  at  last  is  ready 
more  than  any  other  to  see  the  gospel  from  Christ's 
own  point  of  view,  and  to  comprehend  its  final 
implications.  He  especially  reports  the  words 
the  Lord  addresses  to  his  very  own.  The  other 
evangelists  dwell  more  upon  the  detail  and  effect 
of  the  gracious  wonders — John  upon  the  meaning 
of  Him  who  so  wrought.  The  others  unfold  the 
swift  parables — John  handles  their  master  key. 
Realistic  and  historical  always,  and  so  safe-guarded 
from  pantheistic  sublimation,  evolving  nothing 
from  fancy,  but  ever  sinking  deeper  the  plummet 
of  reflection,  he  thought  so  much,  so  far,  but  ever 
so  close,  that  one  feels  that  his  very  style  is  like 
his  Teacher's,  and  that  the  voice  that  had  so  sunk 
into  the  depths  of  a  capable  soul  is  reproduced. 
The  fourth  Gospel  is  phonographic !  John  so 
meditated  and  pondered  that  the  great  reality  was 


54  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

clear  to  him.  With  that  logic  which  is  implicit 
and  transcendant  in  intuition,  he  bridged  and 
harmonized  the  antithesis  between  this  divine 
nature  and  its  human  conditions.  To  him  all 
that  Christ  did  and  said  is  explained  only  by  what 
He  was.  Within,  about,  and  up,  and  on,  this, 
such  a  disciple  of  such  a  Master,  thought.  And 
by  and  by  he  wrote,  and  the  book — from  the 
oracular  prologue  to  the  simple  epilogue  that 
quietly  wonders  at  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of 
the  material — is  the  Gospel  of  Light. 

John,  again,  was  a  man  of  lofty  imagination. 
It  is  a  great  faculty.  No  one  is  immortally  in- 
structive without  it.  It  sees  the  invisible.  It  fore- 
knows and  foretells.  It  is  mature  and  positive. 
It  does  not  discuss,  it  declares.  It  takes  the  wings 
of  the  morning.  To  it  space  is  but  a  terrestrial 
term,  and  time  is  no  longer.  Under  the  presiding 
conception  that  the  Eternal  Spirit  had  in  the 
person  of  Christ  shown  Himself  concrete  with 
man,  John  views  all  light  and  life  sub  specie  eterni- 
tatis.  All  the  gleaming  figures  of  Isaiah  and 
Ezekiel,  all  scene  and  song,  the  splendors  of 
temple  and  ceremony,  the  magnificence  and  awe 
of  war,  the  scroll  of  record,  the  glory  of  lineage, 
the  very  stars  and  suns — become  one  metaphor 
of  the  great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord.     It  is 


JOHN'S  THREE  DEFINITIONS  OF  GOD        55 

he,  whose  "  soul  was  grown  to  match,"  that  was 
in  the  spirit  upon  Patmos,  thus  to  herald  the 
terrors  of  a  kindling  world  and  the  white  beauty 
of  the  new  Jerusalem. 

Last  and  ever  this  John  was  a  great  lover. 
His  meditating  and  exalted  soul  knew  also  that 
affinity  and  affection  for  a  friend  who  could  satisfy 
the  depths,  which  taught  him  the  inmost  and 
uttermost  God.  And  it  is  that  love  that  breathes 
its  benediction  in  the  first  Epistle.  Its  assurance 
is  absolute.  All  is  open.  "We  know,"  "we 
know"  is  the  key  of  that  whole  harmony.  The 
Son  of  Thunder  speaks  the  valediction  of  all  that 
band  who  companied  with  Christ.  He  has  be- 
come a  grandsire  of  the  Church.  He  writes  to 
all  who  love  as  his  "  Httle  children."  He  has 
survived  priest  and  imperator,  the  torch,  the 
sword,  the  lions,  and  the  mob.  His  venerable 
face  is  bathed  with  the  soft  forelight  of  a  swiftly 
approaching  joy.  Anti-Christ  troubles  him  no 
more.  He  sleeps.  And  still  at  this  long  remove 
He  who  guided  that  pen  of  John's  would  fix  us 
upon  the  spirit,  the  light,  the  love,  it  registered. 
"These  are  written,  that  ye  might  beheve  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ." 


V 
CONVICTION,    OR   HEARSAY 


i 


V 

CONVICTION,  OR  HEARSAY 

"  Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it  thee 
of  Me?" — John  xviii.  34. 

A  QUESTION  is  a  great  opener.  This  was  the 
way  of  Socrates.  It  was  eminently  the  way  of 
Christ.  Both  were  hated  because  they  were  so 
penetrating  and  so  unavoidable.  It  is  because 
questioning  is  so  personal  that  conventionality 
holds  it  to  be  rude.  It  is  the  instinct  of  inquisi- 
tiveness.  It  is  the  shortest  cut  to  information. 
It  is  the  way  of  the  child  and  of  the  scholar.  It 
is  the  key  of  knowledge.  It  is  alike  a  keen  tool 
and  a  pointed  weapon.  The  teacher,  the  physi- 
cian, the  lawyer,  must  each  acquire  skill  in  in- 
terrogation. To  catechise  means  to  piit  to  the 
echo.  The  prologue  of  Luke  (i.  4)  says,  "  that 
thou  mightest  know  the  infallibility  concerning 
the  things  wherein  thou  wast  catechised."  All 
questions  are  demands  at  sight. 

Life  is  full  of  questions — direct,  persistent,  in- 
evitable. Life  itself  is  all  one  great  question. 
To  the  query  "what  is  your  life?"  all  our  char- 

59 


6o  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

acters  are  articulate  replies,  deep  or  shallow,  firm 
or  weak,  vague  or  clear.  To  ask  and  to  answer 
is  to  live. 

We  should  be  thankful  for  the  many  times  our 
Lord  was  so  narrowly  questioned.  We  are  in- 
debted to  the  very  cavils  that  drew  out  many  of 
His  clearest  words.  He  sought  to  be  questioned 
and  compelled  it.  He  invited  interview  and  re- 
warded it.  Still  He  does  both.  He  knows  how 
much  man  needs  to  ask  and  to  hear,  and  would 
leave  none  to  the  miseries  of  a  questioning  con- 
science and  an  unanswered  heart. 

We  all  know  Munkacsy's  picture  of  Christ  be- 
fore Pilate,  but  when  we  see  the  perplexed  and 
vexed  face  of  the  Roman,  though  in  scdiie,  and  the 
calm  penetrative  look  of  Him  who  stands  to  be 
cross-examined,  we  feel  that  the  title  should  be 
reversed,  and  that  the  scene  portrays  Pilate  before 
Christ ! 

The  sequel  of  that  dialogue  makes  it  intense, 
and  it  is  full  of  interlinear  truth.  More  readily 
to  examine  Christ  the  prefect  takes  Him  aside, 
but,  lo !  immediately  positions  are  reversed,  and 
the  prisoner  is  the  examiner,  having  the  thoughts 
of  his  heart  revealed.  And  we,  if  we  search  this 
Scripture  to-day,  shall  find  that  it  is  really  search- 
ing us.     So  God  grant  it  may,  and  to  our  eternal 


CONVICTION,    OR   HEARSAY  6i 

benefit !     With  a  certain  vacillation  and  also  (so 
we  may  think)  with  an  effort  toward  official  dig- 
nity, Pilate  asks,  "  Art  Thou  a  king  ?"     But  before 
any  answer  to  that  there  rises  another  matter — 
quiet  but  so  searching — our  text,  "Sayest   thou 
this,"   etc.     Past   the  diplomacy  and  the  maneu- 
vering, Christ  makes  the  most  of  the  opportunity 
(slight  as  it  is),  and  reaches  clear  in  after  Pilate's 
soul.     He  makes  that  anteroom  an  inquiry  room, 
and   knocks   hard  at  the   door  of  a  heart.     But 
Pilate  throws  another  bolt.     He   shrinks    deeper 
into  himself,  and  with  a  poor  disdain,  disclaiming 
all  personal  concern,  he  retorts,  "  Am  I  a  Jew  ?" 
— "  Told  me  ?" — of  course,  how  else  ?    He  evades, 
— "  what  hast  thou  done  ?"     But  Christ  will  not 
waive  that  previous  question  as  to  His  kingship, 
and  He  declares  wherein  and  whereunto  He  is 
royal.     Not  a  monarch  after  the  manner  of  men 
— not  martial.     Such  a  king  as  the  Jews  would 
not  have.     A  Messiah  that  was  not  a  nationalist, 
a  patriot  in  their  narrow  sense  they  renounced. 
They  hated  a  claim  to   a   sovereignty  which  at 
once  disavowed  their  weapons  and  their  motives. 
They  demanded  a  visible  empire  after  their  own 
partisanship   and   passion.      Their   piety    was   all 
provincial. 

But  Christ's  claim  to  a  spiritual  dominion,  to 


62  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

the  kingliness  of  tnitJi,  should  have  acquitted 
Him  of  any  offense  against  Caesar.  Convert  He 
would,  but  not  stibvert. 

What  an  immortal  opportunity  Pilate  had  to 
be  brave  and  just !  Alas,  it  passes  !  So  in  that 
dialogue  which  every  soul  holds  once  with  Christ, 
there  is  a  critical  nearest  instant  when  He  deepens 
mere  verbal  curiosity  into  a  matter  of  life  or  death. 
His  searching  scrutiny  is  that  we  may  realize  what 
lies  just  under  all  superficial  questions. 

You  ask  somewhat  ?  Would  you  know  what 
it  implies  ?  Would  you  learn  what  I  am  ?  Do 
you  ask  ?  Or  is  it  all  forced  upon  you  by  outer 
and  unwelcome  pressure  ?  Is  it  solemn,  earnest, 
or  perfunctory  ?  Is  it  the  man  who  asks  or  the 
official  ?     Is  it  original  or  borrowed? 

This  interview  between  the  temporary  prefect 
and  the  Lord  of  life  emphatically  teaches  the 
everlasting  distinction  between  faith  and  hearsay ^ 
— between  belief  and  make-believe. 

Christ  distinguishes  as  to  the  quality  of  what 
is  said  to  Him  and  of  Him.  That  scene  and  that 
word  urges  us  to  discriminate  deep-down  honesty 
toward  the  Truthful  One,  from  all  compulsory, 
controversial,  or  conventional  talk  about  Him. 
Faith  to  be  real  must  be  without  duress, — for 
one's   self  "  and  not  for  another."      Fluency  of 


» 


CONVICTION,    OR   HEARSAY  63 

pious  phrase,  traditional  catchwords,  all  religion  of 
hearsay,  must  meet  His  inquisition  whose  quali- 
tative analysis  puts  us  all  to  the  test.  Confession 
of  Christ  cannot  be  proxied  or  deputized.  Real 
thought  may  be  evaded  by  trite  and  borrowed 
words.  It  is  not  how  much  we  believe,  but  how 
much  we  believe  it.  Statements  may  be  true  and 
yet  be  meaningless  if  we  have  not  wrestled  out, 
each  man  his  own  way,  to  their  mastery.  Candor 
and  even  capacity  are  sacrificed  if  we  consent  to 
measure  right  by  prejudice  or  party. 

It  is  a  vice  of  too  much  of  our  thinking  to-day 
that  we  get  it  by  subscription  and  at  club  rates. 
Many  are  too  preoccupied  or  impatient  to  do  their 
own  thinking  and  want  their  ideas  peptonized. 
The  partisanships  of  affirmation  and  of  negation 
are  alike  external  to  personal  responsibility.  They 
asked  with  triumph  in  His  day,  **  Have  any  of  the 
rulers  or  of  the  Pharisees  beheved  on  Him?" — but 
it  was  a  non  seqidtiir.  Credo  is  not  plural.  Nothing 
so  stultifies  conscience  as  to  borrow  one's  opinions 
of  duty.  Christ  said  to  such,  "  I  know  you,  that 
ye  have  not  the  love  of  God  in  yourselves." 
"  That  which  my  lips  know  they  shall  speak 
sincerely  "  is  the  only  safeguard  of  personal  truth. 
And  if  cant  of  affirmation  is  the  bane  of  genuine- 
ness, is  not  the   cant  of  denial  equally  hollow? 


64  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

Second-hand  doubt,  ready-made  objection,  is  at 
once  the  shallowest  and  most  unmanly.  It,  too, 
says  only  "  what  some  other  told  it." 

The  propaganda  of  unbelief  finds  market  for 
its  flimsy  wares  mainly  among  those  gaping  critics 
of  gospel  duty  who  so  readily  mistake  sciolism 
for  scholarship,  and  who  are  willing  to  substitute 
for  resolute  reasons  a  slanderous  quotation. 

It  is  strange  how  those  who  renounce  the  high- 
est authority  are  willing  to  accept  the  lowest,  and 
to  put  the  misconceptions  of  domineering  ob- 
jectors in  place  of  the  self-testifying  Lord !  This 
is  the  suicide  of  individuality. 

We  have  a  right  to  demand  vigilant  pains-tak- 
ing conviction  from  one  another,  and  that,  how- 
ever little  one  may  say,  that  much  shall  have 
been  made  his  very  own.  Nothing  so  becomes 
the  soul  as  homespun.  For  what  is  vitally  true  to 
some  other  shall  be  false  in  you  if  you  but  adopt 
it  arbitrarily. 

That  which  we  say  of  God  or  to  God,  of  Christ 
or  to  Christ — if  it  is  only  memoriter  or  rote — is 
quite  another  thing  from  actual  experience.  A 
real  opinion  and  purpose  is  vital,  not  artificial,  and 
has  reproductive  power,  but  an  opinion  about  an 
opinion  is  sterile,  and,  as  Paul  said  of  an  idol,  "  It 
is  nothing  in  the  world."     BeHef  in  Christ  is  more 


CONVICTION,    OR    HEARSAY  65 

than  a  belief  in  a  belief.  If  religion  (according  to 
the  best  etymology)  is  from  the  verb  rclegere^ 
meaning  to  ponder,  it  cannot  be  the  thoughtless 
adoption  of  the  thought  of  some  one  else.  Each 
man  must  chew  his  own  food ! 

Nor  can  religion  m  the  present  indicative  use 
the  terms  of  the  imperfect  subjunctive.  Conviction 
is  far  more  than  a  reminiscence.  To  recite  what 
once  was  my  own  is  not  necessarily  to  avow  it 
now.  My  own  deepest  being  must  reenact  the 
great  submissions  and  fervent  consecrations  of 
the  saints  passed  on  or  I  cannot  truly  share  them. 
My  to-day  must  break  its  own  path  from  yester- 
day to  to-morrow.  "  Considering  the  issue  "  of 
noble  lives  we  are  to  imitate  their  faith,  not  copy 
their  inflections — 

"They  climbed  the  steep  ascent  to  Heaven, 
Through  peril,  toil,  and  pain ; 
O  God,  to  us  may  grace  be  given 
To  follow  in  their  train  !" 

To  be  "  carried  to  the  skies  on  flowery  beds  of 
ease  "  is  to  renounce  the  sword  and  wish  for  the 
ambulance.  The  soft  litter  of  the  angels  is  only 
for  souls  who  have  quit  them  like  men  in  the  fore- 
front of  the  battle.  Will  and  work  are  the  hard 
disciplines  of  high  virtue.  The  studies  that  cost 
us  most  train  us  best.  Character  does  not  pro- 
5 


66  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

ceed  on  "  the  line  of  the  least  resistance."  Chris- 
tianity is  not  bowing  at  Christ's  name,  but  bearing 
Christ's  j^^y^r. 

"  Sayest  thou  this  thing  of  thyself  ?"  or  is 
your  prayer  but  an  echo,  your  praise  the  trill 
of  the  mocking  bird,  your  hope  and  assurance 
borrowed,  your  theory  of  life  plagiarized,  your 
diary  a  copy  book!  Is  Christ  your  utility  or 
your  end?  Peacocks  and  parrots  are  birds  of 
low  flight ;  it  is  the  song  of  the  lark  that  scales 
the  skies. 

The  vice  of  imitativeness  is  not  merely  that  it 
offers  a  cheap  substitute  for  originahty,  but  that  it 
destroys  the  power  of  becoming  original.  We 
live  in  a  time  when  the  mechanical  and  the  con- 
venient greatly  menaces  the  spontaneous  and  the 
intuitive.  We  are  tempted  by  lithograph  and 
process  to  lose  the  power  of  free-hand  and  to  be- 
come parasites.  Almost  all  things  are  furnished 
by  pattern  and  quantity.  We  feed  on  canned 
foods,  and  think  that  a  check  settles  all  balances. 
We  content  ourselves  with  calling  near-sighted- 
ness omniscience.  We  pay  editors  to  think  for 
uc,  and  we  build  our  dwellings  by  the  block. 

Such  a  searching  text  as  this  recalls  us.  It 
challenges  that  laziness  in  which  individuality 
wilts.     It  shows  the  reflex  menace  of  lip-service. 


CONVICTION,    OR    HEARSAY  67 

In  adjuring  Pilate  to  consider  the  sources  of  his 
speech,  Christ  warns  us  all  against  false  pretenses. 
For  the  one  great  thing  not  to  be  compounded 
for,  not  to  be  manufactured,  or  lent,  or  bought,  is 
faith.  For  good  faith  takes  the  juror's  pledge. 
To  say  /  believe  should  be  as  careful  and  as 
solemn  as  an  oath.  A  vote  is  literally  a  zww. 
Creed  is  non-transferable.  An  actual  creed  is  an 
honest  account  of  stock.  If  it  is  not  alive  it  is 
stale.  Hearsay  is  no  final  evidence.  One  cannot 
give  away  experience. 

I  do  not  plead  for  less  creed,  but  for  more — for 
far  more.  But  not  so  much  more  in  quantity  as 
in  quality,  and  as  to  quality,  not  more  in  the  ob- 
jective realities  and  relations  of  religion,  as  of 
our  subjective  hold  of  these.  For  the  outer  to 
be  the  sign  of  the  inner — that  the  mighty  pro- 
test, Credo,  may  have  three  dimensions,  not  only 
length  and  breadth,  but  also  depth.  Any  hesita- 
tion is  better  than  a  glibness  which  tricks  out  its 
debility,  whether  of  doubt  or  devotion,  in  shreds 
of  pious  memoirs  and  scraps  of  Bible  gotten  ear- 
wise.  Audit  is  one  thing,  credit  quite  another. 
Better  five  words  with  the  understanding  than  ten 
thousand  words  in  an  unknown  tongue.  Do  we 
know  it?  Do  we  tnean  it?  Formulas  which 
have  been  vital  to  others  may  be  barren  to  us. 


68  THE  WfLL  BY  THE  GATE 

We  profane  Scripture  when  we  turn  phrases  that 
once  breathed  and  burned  and  bled  into  common- 
place shibboleths. 

Mme.  de  Stael  once  said,  "  Better  a  smaller 
vocabulary  and  a  fuller  heart !"  True  religion  is 
not  a  self-monologue,  but  a  dialogue  with  the 
Father  of  our  spirits.  It  means  reciprocity.  The 
thing  needful  is  not  that  we  recite  the  great  creeds 
of  the  fourth  century,  or  match  with  music  the 
lyric  fervors  of  Charles  Wesley  and  Henry  Lyte 
— great  as  these  are — but  that  we  "  speak  that  we 
do  know." 

First  testy  then  testimony.  It  is  the  tones  of 
experience  that  command  attention.  What  we 
have  struggled  out  is  ours.  To  every  earnest 
soul  there  comes  a  time  when  it  must  revise  what 
it  has  till  then  taken  for  granted,  and  change  the 
ore  of  opinion  to  the  metal  of  conviction.  Food, 
coin,  knowledge — we  only  own  what  we  use,  the 
rest  owns  us. 

Let  us  ask  not  fewer  questions  of  Christ,  but 
only  such  as  we  are  willing  He  should  answer  in 
His  own  way.  The  probe  is  in  the  hand  of  One 
who  is  as  tender  as  He  is  sure.  He  may  hurt, 
but  He  can  heal.  You  who  so  far  have  taken 
Christ  upon  the  representations,  or  worse,  upon 
the   misrepresentations,  of  others,  "  ask,  and  ye 


CONVICTION,   OR    HEARSAY  69 

shall  receive !"  Hear  Him.  If  you  were  logical 
to  your  premises — inadequate  as  they  may  be — 
if  you  would  follow  even  your  latent  convictions 
of  what  is  true  in  Him,  you  would  come  to  His 
feet,  yes,  to  His  arms,  as  both  your  Sovereign  and 
Saviour,  and  say  ''My  King !"  And  so,  with  Paul, 
to  others  (i  Thes.  i.  5),  "Our  gospel  came  not 
unto  yoti  in  word  only^  but,"  etc.  Your  heart 
will  not  be  nonplussed  if  you  find  Him  whose 
work  since  He  was  twelve  years  old  has  been 
hearing  and  answering  questions ;  but  if  not —  ! 


VI 

THE   UNKNOWN   GOD 


VI 

THE  UNKNOWN  GOD 

"  In  all  things  I  observe  you  as  exceedingly  religious  ;  for,  pass- 
ing along  and  noting  your  objects  of  worship,  I  found  also  an 
altar  upon  which  had  been  inscribed  To  the  Unknown  God,  what 
therefore  ye  not  knowing  worship  that  do  I  announce  to  you." — 
Acts  xvii.  22,  23.     {Author's  translation.) 

That  story  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  The 
Acts  gives  us  the  points  of  contact  and  of  differ- 
ence between  the  philosophy  of  the  antique  world 
and  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  almost  the 
strongest  passage  in  the  book.  It  burns  with 
wisdom  and  suggestion.  The  circumstances  in- 
troduce the  speech,  whose  brief  outline  of  only 
about  three  hundred  words  is  yet  enough  to  show 
Paul's  courage  as  a  Christian  and  his  skill  as  an 
orator.  Adroit  in  conciliation,  delicate  in  sugges- 
tion, thorough  in  its  adaptation,  simple  and  sweep- 
ing in  its  logic,  issuing  in  that  testimony  of  which 
he  dare  not  be  silent,  and  which  is  still  the  crux 
and  the  scandal  of  worldly  wisdom — it  was  just 
like  Paul  from  first  to  last. 

Silas  and  Timothy  had  been  left  behind  at  that 

73 


74  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

Beroea  where  the  Scriptures  of  the  prophets  had 
such  honor,  and,  waiting  for  them,  all  alone,  Paul 
sees  Athens  where  the  only  prophets  are  the  poets. 
It  is  the  city  of  Athene — goddess  of  skill  and  wis- 
dom. All  Hellenic  art  and  story  and  worship 
and  thought  centered  there.  In  what  it  was  it 
stood  and  stands  peerless,  supreme.  Beautiful 
for  situation,  and  adorned  beyond  the  rivalry  of 
all  later  ages,  of  vast  intellectual  prestige,  of  a 
never-satisfied  mental  curiosity — it  was  "  the  eye 
of  Greece,"  and  is  the  wonder  of  time.  Schools, 
sybarites,  strangers,  slaves — and  over  all  the 
breath  of  moral  decay.  Citizens  and  all  comers 
alike  were  having  leisure  for  nothing  other  than 
to  tell  or  to  hear  some  "  7icwer  thing-."  The 
latest  novelty  was  the  most  welcome — quid  mine? 

Great  Aristotle  and  greater  Plato  were  long 
dead,  and  less  noble  forms  of  thought  now  ruled 
this  city  of  discussions.  And  this  degeneracy  of 
thought  showed  the  incompetency  of  even  the 
loftiest  type  of  unheavened  human  reason  to  re- 
sist the  sensualism  that  seeks  its  end  in  pleasures, 
and  the  fatalism  whose  pride  of  aspiration  finds 
its  conclusion  in  despair. 

What  philosophy,  as  such,  could  do,  had  there 
been  done.  Idolatry  had  exhausted  invention. 
Priests,  sacrifices,  shrines,  festal  days,  were  always 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  75 

in  evidence,  but  this  capital  of  aesthetics  was  still 
hopelessly  unsatisfied  and  restless — unhappy  and 
impatient — and  ritual  had  lost  its  earnestness. 

"  When  love  begins  to  sicken  and  decay 
It  useth  an  enforced  ceremony." 

Exquisite  refinement  of  language,  subtlety  of 
dialectic,  splendor  of  technique,  memory  of  re- 
nown— all  that  made  Athens  the  gossip  of  the 
world,  had  yet  failed  of  that  final  peace  without 
which  conscience  arrays  man  in  a  miserable 
quarrel  with  himself  and  all  things. 

What  has  Paul  to  say  to  this  Boston  of  Greece, 
and  what  has  it  to  say  to  him  ?  See !  He  moves 
about,  inspecting,  reflecting,  and  the  city  full  of 
idols  rouses  him  to  a  "  paroxysm."  All  this  beauty 
and  no  hallowing  knowledge  of  good.  Variety 
itself  a  confession  of  spiritual  uncertainty.  Sim- 
plicity nowhere.  He  must  speak.  And  so  in  the 
little  synagogue,  and  the  great  agora,  or  market 
place,  he  held  daily  dialogue  with  all  comers. 
The  omnipresent  mistake  gave  him  a  constant 
text — the  true  God  and  eternal  life.  Everywhere 
he  looked  there  was  a  shrine  with  its  label.  As 
one  of  their  own  satirists  had  said,  "  It  was  easier 
in  Athens  to  find  a  god  than  to  find  a  man." 

His  protest  is  heard  of;  for  never  can  be  hid  a 


76  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

resolute  man  with  a  true  word !  The  philoso- 
phers encounter  him  to  make  the  cause  of  Athens 
their  own.  They  will,  if  they  can,  smother  him 
with  formulas,  riddle  him  with  categories,  and 
silence  him  as  absurd. 

Two  theories  of  human  life  are  there — self-suf- 
ficient, hostile,  inconclusive — the  pride  of  pleasure 
and  the  pleasure  of  pride.  The  Epicureans  were 
the  Greek  Sadducees.  Sinking  below  the  level  of 
him  whose  name  they  held,  they  had  become  frivo- 
lous, and  reason  for  them  was  but  a  procuress. 
With  them,  though  apparently  so  opposite,  came 
certain  of  the  Stoics,  austere,  cynical,  churlish — at 
the  best  fatalists  defying  the  inevitable.  Without 
hope,  both.  As  pithy  Thomas  Fuller  (p.  223)  puts 
it :  "  The  first  standing  for  the  anarchy  of  fortune, 
the  second  for  the  tyranny  of  fate."  They  began 
with  a  sneer  and  an  epithet :  "  What  would  this 
babbler  say?" — the  bird  that  picked  up  seeds  in 
the  street  cackling  as  he  did  so — a  crow.  "  He 
seems  to  be  an  announcer  of  alien  gods."  Strange 
indeed  would  his  themes  be  to  them.  Yet,  withal, 
his  sincerity  has  an  unusual  flavor.  So  they  have 
him  to  the  Areopagus,  or  Hill  of  Mars,  an  open 
and  lofty  platform  of  limestone  near  by,  where 
sat  the  court  Solon  had  instituted  for  the  trial 
of  capital  offenses,  where,  upon  seats  hewn  from 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  77 

the  natural  rock,  the  supreme  judges  held  their 
venerable  sessions.  No  violence  is  implied,  though 
the  place  may  have  been  chosen  as  carrying  a 
suggestion  of  intimidation. 

But  it  fitted  the  man  and  his  theme,  as  they 
ask  him,  with  ironical  courtesy,  "  May  we  know 
what  this  new  teaching  is  ?"  It  was  upon  the 
charge  of  treasonable  novelty  of  opinion  that, 
long  before,  this  Athens  had  sentenced  Socrates. 
Socrates  would  have  enjoyed  this  scene.  Paul 
has  permission.  Enough.  It  is  under  that  perfect 
sky, — about,  the  city  with  its  lustrous  architect- 
ures,— afar,  the  countless  twinkling  of  the  sea, — 
at  hand,  the  chattering,  curious  company.  But 
in  him,  now  to  speak,  is  a  tremendous  memory 
and  a  devoted  hope  whose  passion  no  flouting 
can  daunt.  Men  are  his  occasion,  and  however 
curt  or  critical  their  attention,  all  afforded  mo- 
ments are  his  opportunity.  There  he  stood  in- 
trepid before  rhetoricians  and  philosophers  to 
tell  them  of  life,  and,  if  they  would  but  hear,  of 
Him  who  is  the  very  wisdom  of  God.  For  who 
has  so  written  His  wisdom  upon  the  mind  and 
heart  of  men  as  that  Jesus  whom  Paul  preached  ? 
What  is  any  history  of  philosophy  worth  that 
forgets  that  Teacher  of  teachers — Christ  ? 

Fragmentary  as  this   sketch  of  Luke's   must 


78  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

be,  it  shows  Paul's  masterful  tact.  Wisest  and 
shrewdest  of  all  known  introductions.  It  is  filled 
with  local  color  and  smoothes  the  way  while  it 
arrests  attention.  Direct,  without  bluntness,  it 
shows  the  skill  of  one  who  could  make  the  most 
of  an  opportunity.  Paul  is  a  Christian  diplomat. 
It  was  notable  wit — so  Acts  xxii.  1-3,  xxiii.  6, 
xxiv.  10,  xxvi.  12,  xxviii.  17,  19.  Remembering 
such  instances,  it  is  curious  indeed  that  both  the 
revisions  of  161 1  and  1881  should  fail  to  translate 
justly  the  word  with  which  Paul  so  keenly  and 
truthfully  characterized  the  Athenians.  He  did 
not  tell  them  that  they  were  "  superstitious,"  but 
that  they  were  "  more  than  ordinarily  religious." 
He  is  not  so  maladroit  as  to  rebuff  them  at  the 
outset,  and  lose  his  one  possible  advantage. 
Moreover,  their  altars  and  temples  are  a  positive 
point  in  his  argument.  "  Passing  along  and 
noting  their  objects  of  worship,"  particularly  he 
had  been  impressed  with  one  inscribed,  "  ^ Ayvwarw 
dew  " — what,  therefore,  they  unknowing  worship, 
that  will  Paul  declare  to  them.  Two  sentences 
and  the  ground  is  cleared  for  the  theme.  It  is  as 
clean  and  keen  as  a  lancet.  There  is  no  finer 
instance  of  wise  introduction  in  all  the  annals  of 
speech.  Paul  had  seen  Athens  soberly,  as  every 
true   man   must  consider  any  great  city — he  ap- 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  79 

predated  its  physical  beauty  and  looked  beyond 
this.  "  Religious  " — all  men  are  that.  It  is  the 
exceeding  prerogative  and  function  of  man  so  to 
be.  Something  must  be  worshiped,  image  or 
reality.  Paul,  too,  is  a  worshiper.  H  knows 
of  whom. 

The  instinct  is  an  immense  avowal.  Yet  one 
may  worship  an  unknown  god  and  die  amid  the 
distractions  of  a  miscellaneous  idoldom.  Thirst 
is  not  water,  and  craving  is  not  knowledge.  Paul 
would  direct  this  appealing  and  appalling  hunger 
to  a  reasonable  object.  He  would  shed  upon  this 
confessed  want  the  light  of  an  unguessed  love, 
and  lead  it  to  the  shelter  of  an  infinite  promise. 
Not  for  naught  in  this  city  of  idols  and  idlers 
had  he  specially  considered  the  inscription  which 
(note  the  courtesy  of  the  pluperfect  tense — not  by 
those  before  him)  "  had  been  written." 

In  that  epigraph,  as  in  a  mirror,  idolatry  must 
recosrnize  at  once  its  instinct  and  its  failure.  It 
confessed  the  vagueness  and  yet  the  desire — the 
hunp-er  and  the  starvation.  It  was  a  vast  and 
helpless  interrogation.  [Eder.  on  Proph.,  42,  43.] 
Showing  capacity  for  God,  it  showed  also  the 
incapacity  of  the  errant  and  self-willed  reason  to 
reach  Him ;  for  even  in  lofty  Athens  polytheism 
and  pantheism  was   the   result.     That   personal. 


8o  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

holy,  merciful,  redemptive  One,  it  knew  not.  In 
this  very  sanctuary  of  intellect,  of  letters,  and 
of  art,  man  confessed  that  such  a  God  was  "  far 
above,  out  of  his  sight." 

How  Paul  felt  the  pathos  of  it  all,  imagine. 
He  would  take  that  hand  raised  in  the  darkness, 
and  clutching  vainly  "  if  haply  it  might  find  Him," 
and  guide  cynic  and  sophist  to  the  One  so  near. 
He  would  answer  the  query  and  the  quest — show 
the  path  they  had  missed,  and  erase  the  word 
"  Unknown." 

He  does  not  refute,  he  interprets.  Hebrew 
Scripture,  in  form,  he  does  not  once  quote,  for 
with  them  this  has  no  authority ;  rather  he  cites 
"  one  of  their  own  poets,"  and  yet  the  spirit  of 
the  Psalms  and  of  Isaiah  is  in  all  he  says  there. 
He  adapts  himself  to  their  logic,  and  the  so  brief 
summary  furnished  us  yet  shows  a  most  system- 
atic and  broad  argument. 

God  the  Maker  of  the  Cosmos  and  its  ruler — 
not  confined  (and  here  suppose  the  sweeping 
gesture  toward  the  splendid  structures  all  about) 
to  shrines  made  by  hands.  First  cause  and  final 
end  of  being !  Giver  of  all  life — maintainer  of  it 
all !  His  unity  and  so  the  unity  of  all  men,  who 
in  Him  move  and  arc.  All  races  His  offspring, 
and  so  brother-bound.     Not  the  '*  art  and  study  " 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  8i 

of  man,  but  the  heart  is  the  answer.  The  creat- 
ure more  than  the  things  he  fashions, — God  more. 
Idolatry  and  its  idea  unworthy  then  of  both  the 
father  and  the  child.  God's  likeness  within.  Der- 
ivation teaching  dependence.  The  times  of  this 
"  agnosticism  "  God  overlooked.  His  forbearance 
with  it.  His  present  call  to  a  "  change  of  mind." 
The  judgment  of  all  the  habitable  earth  by  a 
Man  whom  He  had  appointed  and  the  assurance 
thereof  by  His  resurrection. 

Here  on  the  Hill  of  Mars  he  cited  Athens  to 
face  God.  Swift,  sure,  fervid — he  strode  from 
premiss  to  conclusion. 

Hearing  of  a  "  resurrection  of  dead  men  "  some, 
thereupon,  were  jeering;  some  postponed;  and 
Paul  knew  himself  dismissed.  Some  stuck  to  him, 
one  of  them  a  judge  of  the  court,  one  woman,  by 
name  Damaris,  and  others.  So  it  was  that  day,  so 
it  is  this  day.  All  that  Paul  could  he  did.  No 
church  rose  there ;  no  letter  to  Athens  is  known. 
Pride  of  place,  exclusiveness  of  race,  conceit  of 
knowledge,  theory  that  denied  the  wisdom  and 
the  power  of  the  God  of  life  and  Lord  of  death — 
whatever  it  was,  they  closed  the  testimony  of  that 
God  whose  community  of  relation  to  all  men 
contains  the  community  of  all  men's  relation  to 
Him ;  whose  providence  clasps  all  the  issues  of 

6 


82  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

all  hearts ;  who  leaves  none  groping  in  spiritual 
orphanage  that  is  willing  to  recognize  His  pres- 
ence and  do  His  will.  Philosophers  as  they  were, 
they  did  not  love  this  deepest  and  simplest  wis- 
dom. They  went  their  ways  and  Paul  went  his. 
And  still  the  altar  stood — "  to  whom  it  may  con- 
cern !"     It  stands  yet,  in  a  figure,  for  those  who 

prefer  it — 

"  Tijj  ayvcoarco  6ew !" 

Far  Athens  went,  but  not  far  enough.  Gods 
many  were  hers,  but  not   God/ 

Certain  things  remain  to  reconsider. 

First,  that  all  our  theories  of  life  tread  out  from 
our  conception  of  God.  He,  the  Maker,  must  be 
the  first  proposition  of  any  intelligible  creed.  Any 
whole  theory  of  the  creation  must  hold  it  sub- 
ordinate to  the  Creator — center,  circumference, 
and  bond  of  all  that  is.  Without  Him  all  is 
absurd  and  unreal.  He  cannot  be  ignored — men 
have  to  choose  an  opinion  concerning  Him.  "The 
thought  of  God  (says  another)  spans  the  history 
of  humanity  as  the  rainbow  hangs  over  the  brink 
of  the  waterfall,  always  apparently  about  to  be 
svvept  away  by  the  impetuous  waters,  yet  always 
there."  He  conditions  our  being  and  our  thought, 
Living  by  Him  and  in  Him  we  ought  to  live  to 
Him ;  for  zue  are  His.     And  He  is  accessible — ■■ 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  83 

"  clearly  seen  by  the  creation.''  What  we  read 
out  He  wrote  in.  It  is  not  anonymous,  but  rather 
a  great  acrostic,  which  read  up  and  down  and 
not  sidewise  spells  a  name.  That  very  shrine  at 
Athens  was  a  cryptogram  of  truth. 

And  He,  "  in  whose  hand  is  the  soul  of  every 
living  thing,  and  the  breath  of  all  mankind,"  is  a 
Redeemer.  He  has  manifested  Himself  in  a  Man 
— "  borne  our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows  " — 
"brought  life  and  immortality  to  light."  The 
cross  is  God's  philosophy  of  sin  and  deliverance. 
He  seeks  the  heart  of  the  world  with  that  light. 

An  idol  is  at  once  an  acknowledgment  and  a 
substitute.  It  depreciates  both  God  and  man. 
"  The  workman  made  it."  Divinity  and  humanity 
together  suffer.  That  which  puts  God  nearest 
and  loveliest  lifts  man  furthest  out  of  the  rapacities 
of  selfishness.  Nothing  or  all.  Then  let  us  ask 
ourselves  whether  we  live  up  to  the  Son  of  man 
as  well  as  Athens  lived  up  to  her  idolatries,  and 
whether  a  mythology  practiced  is  not  better  than 
a  Christology  only  praised. 

Think  of  the  proposition,  an  "  unknown  God  !" 
And  think  of  bending  now  at  that  altar!  Yet 
modern  credulity  has  enlarged  upon  that  of  Greece, 
and  writes,  to  an  jinknowable  God ! — a  God  who 
cannot  reveal  Himself  to  His  creature — a  creature 


84  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

who  cannot  know! — both  behttled.  Perception 
shorn  of  reflection  indeed.  How  infinitely  know- 
ing is  this  agnosticism  !  How  smooth  the  modesty 
of  this  large  claim  that  God  is  unintelligible  !  It  is 
petulantly  evasive — it  is  in  the  wish  and  the  will. 
It  ignores  the  question,  "  What  think  ye  of 
Christ?" 

Its  premiss  is  a  priori — manufactured.  It  begs 
the  very  question.  And  it  saws  off  the  bough  it 
sits  on — for  what  is  intelligence  good  for  when  it 
has  committed  parricide  ?  And  why  is  its  eager 
denial  so  reiterative,  except  that  some  reality  urges 
it  on !  It,  with  mock  politeness,  conducts  God  to 
the  frontier.  It  "  does  not  hke  to  retain  Him  in  its 
knowledge."  Why  ?  Ask  Athens  !  What  then  ? 
Ask  Athens  !  Of  what  devotion  is  this  ignorance 
the  mother, — in  the  name  of  knowledge  refusing 
its  possibility? 

Is  it  not  time  finally  to  repudiate  the  crass  dog- 
matism, which  first  assumes  and  then  asserts  that 
preoccupation  with  the  apparatus  of  creation  is  a 
sufficient  reason  to  forget  its  origin  and  ends  ?  Is 
not  that  a  deep  astigmatism  which  dissects  a  bat's 
eye  and  abjures  the  implications  of  the  mind  that 
does  it?  Noble  is  intellectual  curiosity  toward 
all  fact,  but  is  not  the  thinker  a  fact  ?  Is  not 
the  intuition  of  moral  responsibility  a  fact  ?     Shall 


THE  UNKNOWN  GOD  85 

one  proclaim  the  unseen  atom  and  lampoon  the 
unseen  God?  The  animus  of  that  idolatry  of 
mere  objects,  which,  while  at  every  stage  it  must 
use  subjectivity, — and  personality  evades  its  honest 
analysis,  and  which  retires  all  the  problems  of 
the  soul  and  its  laws, — is  an  animus  whose  denials 
are  explained  by  its  dislikes.  The  agnostic  is  a 
kind  of  moral  cretin  !  Agnosticism  preferred  is  a 
kind  of  idiocy,  and  at  last  is  mental  suicide ! 

Its  Latin  equivalent  is  ignoramus.  It  is  not  of 
the  wit,  but  of  the  will.  It  shuts  its  eyes  and  then 
declares  it  cannot  see. 

The  X  with  which  Paul  factored  was  beyond 
the  algebra  of  mere  sense ;  it  was  the  sign  of  the 
cross.  The  soul's  answer  to  the  soul  of  its  Maker 
was  his  major  premiss,  and  led  to  the  depths  of 
wisdom  and  knowledge — "  God  in  Christ." 

And  still  the  same  foundational  facts  that  he 
used  are  "  to  put  to  silence  the  agnosticism  of 
irrational  men."  Creative  intelligence,  immanent 
and  dominant  personality,  strenuous  love — the 
gracious  and  holy  One  to  whom  we  are  akin. 
This  is  the  bed-rock  of  theism  and  of  Christianity. 

"  Earth's  crammed  with  heaven, 
And  every  common  bush  afire  with  God." 

Quibble,  or  quarrel,  or  accept  Him — He  is  here ! 
No  discovery  of  His  ways  can  banish  Him.     Oaths 


86  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

and  prayers,  both,  pronounce  His  name.  The 
accent  varies  as  we  put  Him  into  the  crucible  of  a 
theory,  or  put  ourselves  in  the  crucible  of  prayer. 
Wordy  Athens  missed  the  central  truth  which  by 
a  willing  surrender  Paul  had  found.  "  We  know 
Him  whom  we  have  believed "  was  his  onward 
cry.     Not  at  that  end  of  the  scalpel,  but  at  this ! 

And  we  may  know.  Near  He  is.  One  wrote 
upon  a  blackboard, — "  God  is  nowhere  "  :  but  a 
little  child  spelled  it  out, — "  God  is  n-o-w  h-e-r-e." 
A  child's  longing,  a  child's  faith,  a  child's  assur- 
ance and  love,  and  that  threshold  is  passed  at 
whose  lowly  lintel  a  self-willed  philosophy  bumps 
its  proud  head !  I,  for  my  part,  will  stick  to  Paul, 
all  Athenianism  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
I  erase  the  word  ^^  ayvcbarw!'  I  "know  in  part; 
but  I  shall  know  even  as  I  have  been  known." 


VII 

THE   SANCTIONS   OF   LAW 


VII 

THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW 

"  Knowing  therefore  the  terror  of  the  Lord,  we  persuade  men." 
— 2  Cor.  v.  II. 

In  the  face  of  that  punishment  of  the  slayer  of 
President  McKinley,  let  me  undertake  to  make 
**  manifest  in  your  consciences  "  some  of  the  pro- 
found reasons  that  underlie  what  we  call  the  sanc- 
tions of  the  law.  A  sanction  is  that  which  binds 
law  by  administration.  It  declares  and  assures 
that  the  authority  to  command  goes  with  the 
purpose  and  the  power  to  execute  the  results  of 
obedience  and  of  disobedience.  Legislation  shorn 
of  executive  ability  is  nullified  and  discredited. 
Law  is  not  in  the  subjunctive  but  in  the  imperative 
mood.  Authority  is  not  a  "  bureau  of  advice," 
but  a  right  and  a  purpose  to  control.  It  declares 
a  method  of  administration.  It  formulates  obHga- 
tion.  It  bases  upon  a  right.  It  certifies  a  purpose. 
It  implies  power.     It  reveals  consequences. 

These  consequences  are  sanctions.  Its  conse- 
quences, whether  of  pain  or  of  peace,  make  good 

89 


90  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

its  declarations  and  magnify  its  intention.  They 
refer  to  the  authority  as  actual,  potential,  consist- 
ent, and  complete.  The  purpose  of  law  is  to 
secure  right  action — harmony  with  its  authority — 
life,  order,  blessing;  and  this  purpose  is  so  real 
and  vital  that  it  will  not  tolerate  trifling,  and  that 
it  will  visit  with  adverse  severity  those  who  offend 
its  spirit  and  behests.  A  good  law — a  good 
government — has  its  security  in  approving  and 
securing  good  men,  and  this  it  does  in  demon- 
strating by  active  results  that  it  intends  to  secure 
them  from  the  caprice  or  malice  of  those  who  are 
contentious  and  will  not  obey  its  truth.  If  it  did 
not  promise  and  perform  both  sets  of  results  it 
would  be  a  failure. 

Power  to  uphold  must  therefore  go  with  au- 
thority to  declare,  if  there  is  to  be  a  real  govern- 
ment. Offenders  must  suffer  the  due  consequences 
of  their  offense.  This  is  the  only  possible  way  if 
the  law  is  to  be  respected.  Results  are  necessary 
corollaries,  and  they  bind  (or  sanction)  the  law. 
The  fact  of  right  or  wrong  relation  to  the  authority 
dictates  the  appropriate  consequences.  These  are 
implicit  in  the  command.  They  are  notified  as 
showing  that  the  issues  are  vital.  A  true  as 
opposed  to  a  careless  administration  of  law  must 
become   therefore  a  terror   to   evil    doers  and  a 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW  91 

praise  to  them  that  do  well.  The  doing  regulates 
the  allotment. 

A  false  administration,  neglecting  or  inverting 
this,  is  shown  in  the  barter  of  law,  in  the  surrender 
of  its  sanctions,  in  the  subversion  of  its  own  claim 
to  administer,  and  becomes  a  praise  to  evil  doers 
and  a  terror  to  them  that  do  well !  It  institutes  a 
"ring."  It  misgoverns.  It  prostitutes  justice.  It 
prostrates  all  guarantees  of  right  liberty.  The 
sanctions  are  thus  the  judgment  which  is  passed 
upon  the  given  government — be  it  of  a  city,  or  of 
a  people,  as  right  or  as  wrong. 

Some  sanctions  are  inevitable.  Tyranny  has  its 
own.  Anarchy  has  its  own.  Righteousness  has 
its  own.  For  better  or  worse  they  are.  Good  or 
bad,  they  are  stringent.  They  are  locked  in  the 
reasonable  relation  between  consequence  and 
cause.  Were  it  not  so,  all  the  forces  in  which  we 
are  set  were  irrational.  Because  "  madness  lies 
that  way,"  sanity  lies  the  other  way. 

To  know  "  the  fear  of  the  Lord  "is  to  know 
that  His  wisdom  and  will  and  power  are  pledged 
together  to  the  maintenance  of  His  actual  au- 
thority. The  world  that  is,  is  a  world  where 
creation  and  creature  are  bound  in  law  and  right 
to  their  Creator.  His  control  is  the  condition  of 
the  satisfaction  of  the  life  He  begat,  and  of  the 


92  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

realm  He  made  for  its  loyal  exercise.  The  sanc- 
tions of  His  laws  for  things  and  for  souls  are 
everywhere  shown.  Whatever  authority  He  dele- 
gates has  these  behind  it.  All  right  rule  conforms 
so  far  to  His,  and  the  rationality  and  justice  of  it, 
in  any  case,  is  illuminated  by  the  issuing  results 
that  make  it  binding. 

The  law  of  love,  as  the  law  of  gravity,  has  its 
logical  penalties  and  reward.  All  control  implies 
the  consequences  of  order  and  of  disorder.  It  is 
this  reasonable  sequence  that  makes  the  physical 
world  intelligible  and  makes  the  science  thereof 
possible.  If  law  were  incoherent  (that  is,  without 
coherent  effects)  we  could  not  knoiv.  Organized 
knowledge  implies  an  organized  world.  All  per- 
sonal knowledge  asserts  a  personal  supreme  Ruler. 
A  universe  without  that  were  a  chaos.  That  we 
can  reason  asserts  God  and  His  consistency.  The 
continuity  of  any  law  of  God  involves  a  principle 
that  is  as  real  and  as  regnant  in  morals  as  in 
physics.  Our  observations  and  our  instincts, 
therefore,  coincide  in  expecting  certain  events  to 
follow  certain  relations.  But  these  expectations 
realized  are  the  manifest  sanctions  of  the  law. 
They  declare  its  persistency  and  its  inviolability. 
Those  who  run  against  it  confirm  it. 

Moral  responsibility  is  structural  in  this  world 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW 


93 


of  God.  Justice  is  a  reality.  Particular  justice 
here  is  based  upon  "  the  powers  of  the  world  to 
come."  The  scale  extends  far,  far,  beyond  any 
present  instances,  and  sinks  into  a  thoughtful 
apprehension  stern  premonitions  of  changeless 
principles.  Through  all  opaque  tradition  and 
confused  sentiment  it  darts  prophetic  rays  of  an 
eternal  and  infrangible  authority,  under  which  we 
have  our  being  and  before  whose  vindications  we 
must  stand. 

Equal  law,  whose  pedestal  is  reared  above  the 
tyranny  which  usurps  true  authority  and  the  law- 
lessness which  denies  it,  stands  in  those  intuitions 
of  divine  control  which  ahke  rebuke  Ishmael  and 
Cain. 

Beast  rule — denying  all  wrong  because  denying 
all  right,  all  the  havoc  of  passion  and  will-violence 
that  would  abolish  the  responsibility  it  hates,  that 
would  sin  and  not  suffer,  that  resents  those  sanc- 
tions which  confirm  the  law — is  met  even  in  human 
courts  by  that  conscience  of  mankind  which 
reflects  a  God  of  rectitude,  who  would  not  be 
worthy  if  He  were  neutral  toward  disobedience. 
Were  His  will  weak  and  vacillating,  were  not  His 
resources  pledged  to  the  life  that  is  life  indeed, 
and  pledged  against  the  life  that  is  death — did  He 
not  magnify  and  make  honorable  the  law,  then 


94  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

were  there  no  barriers  against  a  revolutionized 
universe. 

The  instinct  which  connects  penalty  with  per- 
versity— the  capacity  of  moral  indignation  before 
flagrant  injustice,  the  public  determination  to  visit 
offenders  against  even  earth's  rational  order — these 
show  a  part  of  God's  ways,  and  catch  the  rustle  of 
His  skirts.  To  apologize  for  the  strictness  of  right- 
eousness is  to  ^^-moralize  and  <3f^- rationalize  all 
human  relation.  Purpose  to  enforce  is  the  king- 
bolt of  all  law,  and  of  that  purpose  the  sanction, 
in  whatever  degree,  is  the  object  lesson.  Reward 
and  punishment  are  exemplary.  The  ends  of 
punishment  may  include  chastisement  and  reclama- 
tion, but  they  include  far  more.  Penalty  may  be 
detersive  as  to  the  individual,  but  it  must  be  deter- 
rent as  to  others.  It  considers  public  and  general 
influence — it  is  meant  to  make  contempt  of  court 
impossible — it  is  meant  to  show  that  justice  is  for 
the  just  by  showing  that  it  is  against  the  unjust. 
It  reveals  what  the  true  life  is  by  showing  what  it 
cannot  be. 

No  punishment  is  an  equivalent  for  the  offense ; 
it  cannot  square  the  books ;  it  is  not  merely  an 
exacted  fine  ;  it  cannot  be  expiation.  Therefore  it 
is  not  vindictive  (that  is,  revengeful — a  trying  to 
"  get   even,"  pain  for  pain),  but  it  is  vmdicative. 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW  95 

Torture  is  malicious  and  malice  is  not  justice. 
Justice  is  not  arbitrary,  but  explanatory  of  the 
tendency  and  issue  of  evil.  It  warns  from  death 
that  it  may  impart  life.  It  inflicts  that  it  may 
prevent.  It  must  visit  obduracy  or  it  would  not 
be  justice.  So  it  was  a  Saviour  who  warned  from 
the  danger  of  "  eternal  sin."  The  "  strong  delu- 
sion" which  resents  control  and  disdains  obedience 
and  scoffs  at  penalty  is  a  cause,  but  it  is  first  a 
result.  "  The  transgression  of  the  wicked  uttereth 
its  oracle  within  his  heart "  (Psa.  xxxvi.  1,2,  R.  V., 
margin),  and  the  result  of  its  determined  persist- 
ency is  banishment  from  the  probation  it  scorns. 
Effrontery  toward  a  holy  God — and  the  wholeness 
of  the  conditions  of  life — should  fail ;  bravado 
should  have  its  impotence  to  thwart  right  solemnly 
affirmed.  The  lie  of  atheism  and  its  anarchy 
shozdd  "  gnaw  its  own  tongue  !"  He  who  created 
us  moral  beings — with  reason  to  see  and  wills  to 
choose — must  treat  us  both  in  retribution  and 
reward  under  the  terms  of  our  moral  nature, 
else  a  mutable  authority  and  all  woe  to  every  one 
involved,  as  every  one  would  be,  in  the  wreckage 
of  God. 

For  God  to  make  known  the  tendency  of  law- 
lessness is  mercy.  Law  is  not  a  trap.  The  label 
of  "  poison  "  is  an  admonition  to  let  it  alone.     If 


96  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

it  did  not  kill  those  who  abuse  it,  the  label  were 
a  lie.  If  it  does  kill,  it  is  kindness  to  have  it 
known.  And  there  is  that  kills.  If  life  were  not 
an  alternative,  it  were  but  mechanical.  Law  in- 
volves conditions.  Motion  itself  is  conditioned 
by  resistances.  Law  declares  purpose,  that  certain 
forces  shall  act  so  and  so,  and  their  action  and 
reaction  are  equal.  A  world  of  motion  must 
either  be  a  world  of  law  or  a  world  of  confusion. 
The  sanctions  signify  that  law  is  regular  because 
they  provide  for  the  compensation  of  emergencies. 
Construction  is  adaptation  to  condition.  The 
rails  declare  the  nature  of  the  locomotive.  Rules 
regulate  life  that  it  may  learn  and  keep  the  con- 
ditions proper  to  it.  He  who  created  declares 
whereunto  and  wherein.  This  declaration,  how- 
ever ascertained,  is  law.  Law,  then,  is  not  tenta- 
tive nor  subjunctive,  but  indicative  and  imperative. 
Sanctions  are  a  necessary  part  of  its  reality. 
Without  these  it  could  not  be.  They  are — both 
in  reason  and  in  fact.  Back  of  what  is,  we  can- 
not go.     In  that  which  is,  we  think  and  are. 

This  is  fundamental  to  every  exercise  of  intelli- 
gence and  will.  To  theorize  without  fact  is  to 
attempt  a  mental  vacuum.  It  is  both  unscientific 
and  immoral ;  for  that  it  refuses  to  know  in  order 
that  it  may  refuse  to  do.     We  cannot  go  behind 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW  97 

that  law  of  being  which  being  exhibits.  The 
Creator  is  demonstrated  in  that  kind  of  a  creation 
in  which,  by  Him,  we,  the  creatures,  are  set. 

Strangely  enough,  and  in  utter  inconsistency 
with  every  postulate  of  their  hedonism  (the  doc- 
trine that  pleasure  is  the  final  end),  John  Stuart 
Mill  and  his  father  both  objected  that  Christianity 
is  immoral  because  it  sets  forth  a  background  of 
penalty  and  reward.  But  there  the  background 
is  even  upon  the  present  scale — all  criminal  juris- 
prudence recognizes  it.  Christ  did  not  come  to 
change  the  natural  law  of  transgression,  but  to 
change  the  attitude  and  relation  to  it  of  a  culprit, 
but  not  irrecoverable,  race.  The  gospel  is  not  an 
evasion  of  law,  but  honors  it  while  it  shows  how 
God  may  be  just  and  yet  forgive.  It  declares  the 
law  of  the  spirit  of  a  new  life  which  begins  in 
the  confession  of  judgment,  which  pleads  guilty, 
and  which,  under  the  wonderful  conditions  of  a 
mercy,  accepted  as  such,  turns  back  toward  the 
righteous  Will  sin  had  refused  to  its  undoing.  It 
answers  the  desperate  cry  of  the  suffocating  heart, 
"  how  can  man  be  just  with  God  ?"  A  gospel 
that  surrendered  law  would  be  the  good  nczvs 
that  God  had  abdicated ! — what  were  such  a  gos- 
pel worth  ?  Who  would  administer  it  ?  It  were 
a  Robespierre  RepubHc! 

7 


98  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

No.  The  function  of  a  supreme  and  righteous 
authority  is  to  show  its  righteousness  to  be  su- 
preme, and  "  submission  to  the  righteousness  of 
God"  recognizes  and  adores  that  justice  which  is 
not  a  means  but  an  end,  and  to  God's  will  it  utters 
its  total  Amen/ 

We  study  the  sanctions  of  the  law  most  readily 
by  observing  penalty.  It  is  obvious  and  general. 
There  are  a  thousand  diseases  ;  there  is  but  one 
kind  of  health.  Blessedness  is  the  reward.  It 
is  the  absence  of  penalty  and  its  occasion.  To 
secure  this,  penalty  rebukes  that  which  thwarts 
it.  Life  is  the  avoidance  of  all  that  is  deadly. 
Health  is  the  answer  to  the  absence  of  all  that 
makes  sick.  Pathology  is  in  order  to  cure.  The 
absence  of  all  negations  fulfills  the  positive  pur- 
pose. Therefore  we  have  and  study  these  alien 
symptoms.  We  "  niiitd  true  things  by  what  their 
mockeries  be!' 

Truly,  to  fear  penalty  for  its  own  sake  is  not 
goodness.  Avowedly  its  law  is  for  offenders. 
Its  intent  is  to  signify  that  law  is  to  be  kept,  not 
broken.  It  is,  in  whatever  degree,  admonitory — 
"  lest  a  worse  thing  befall,"  but  it  is  admonitory 
because  it  is  stringently  in  earnest.  The  first 
symptoms  have  all  the  incidental  values  of  intimi- 
dation— they  say  ''go  back'' — the  last  results  are 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW  99 

fatal  and  vindicate  the  law — of  use  and  help  only 
toward  others  who  heed  and  pause.  All  is  fore- 
warned that  all  the  bearings  may  be  understood. 
Therefore  said  Paul,  "  Knowing  the  terrors  of 
law,  we  persuade."  Terror  is  not  persuasion, 
but  it  prompts  to  it.  God  is  not  mocked ;  there- 
fore mock  him  not !  "  Because  there  is  wrath — 
beware  P' 

By  every  quicksand  there  is  a  sign, — at  every 
critical  point  a  signal, — before  every  trespass  a 
fence.  Those  only  are  angry  at  this  who  mean 
to  take  the  chances.  When  God  does  not  neglect, 
be  sure  He  does  not  exaggerate. 

Penalty  alone  is  not  recuperative,  but  points 
inward  to  the  need  of  recuperation.  It  is  intro- 
ductory— preliminary.  It  points  away  from  itself 
to  far  deeper  and  higher  considerations.  It  desig- 
nates evil  and  urges  that  "the  fear  of  the  Lord  is 
to  hate "  tJiat.  The  way  of  the  transgressor  is 
made  hard  that  so  he  may  quit  transgression.  He 
is  made  to  fear  the  bad  that  he  may  have  its  un- 
reasonableness shown,  and  may  have  his  ears 
opened  to  discipline ;  so  he  can  come  to  see 
further,  and  to  distinguish  mere  legal  fear  from 
godly  sorrow  for  the  wrong.  The  fitness  of  law 
thus  appeals  to  the  inner  and  moral  sanctions. 
The   case   is    carried    up   into  the  court  of  con- 


loo  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

science.  The  terrors  of  the  Lord^  against  whom 
all  sin  is,  lift  him  above  the  mere  questions  of 
advantage.  He  seeks  not  escape,  but  remedy; 
not  mere  remission  of  pain,  but  forgiveness  oi  sin. 
He  sees  that  penalty  has  been  benign — in  leading 
through,  and  out  of,  legal  fear.  The  inwardness 
of  evil  appears.  He  fronts  Duty,  and  can  see 
the  bewildering  beauty  of  the  love  that  provides 
a  righteous  amnesty.  Nothing  artificial  can  equal 
that.  Before  its  sunlight  even  the  electric  pencils 
cast  a  shadow.  There  is  "  forgiveness  with  God 
that  he  should  be  feared."  They  are  but  prac- 
tical fatalists  who  trifle  with  mercy  by  evading 
the  obedience  to  which  mercy  means  to  reclaim. 
That  is  not  a  salvation  which  does  not  save  from 
sin.  The  persuasions  of  God  are  in  order  that 
we  may  see  the  sacredness  of  life  as  bound  up  in 
Him.  Goodness  is  "  not  of  necessity  but  of  free 
will."  Probation  discloses  sufficient  light  to  cer- 
tify sin's  wages,  but  not  enough  to  stun  and  sear. 
Fear  of  results  leads  back  to  the  vision  of  the 
false  relation  which  invokes  them.  It  awakens 
and  summons,  it  arrests  and  indicts,  but  its  ends 
arc  fulfilled  only  in  a  changed  mind  and  a  contrite 
heart.  Pardon  is  given  only  to  those  who  ask  it 
as  their  sole  resource,  and  who  ask  it  that  they 
may  become   clean   and  true.     Love   to    a   holy 


THE  SANCTIONS  OF  LAW  loi 

God  is  the  only  fulfillment  of  that  law  which  the 
gospel  emphasizes  and  meets,  not  evades.  Oh, 
may  we  all  meet  this  persuasion  with  surrender, 
and,  held  fast  in  the  arms  of  mercy,  be  able  to 
say  with  penitent  and  devoted,  and  so  with  as- 
sured hearts:  "  Enter  not  into  judgment  with  thy 
servant ! " 


VIII 

THE  INVISIBLE   COMPANION 


VIII 

THE   INVISIBLE   COMPANION 
*'  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away." — John  xvi,  7. 

The  anticipation  of  the  Ascension,  and  the  pre- 
lude of  Christ's  further  and  ever-crescent  revelation 
of  God ! 

His  eleven  intimate  friends  knew  that  a  catas- 
trophe was  nearing  them.  What  it  was  to  be 
they  could  not  tell,  but  they  felt  its  chilling  breath, 
and  they  perceived  that  it  menaced  that  society 
with  Him  which  had  become  so  vital  and  so 
precious. 

Sorrow  filled  their  hearts,  and  as  frightened 
children  clutch  a  mother's  skirts,  so  with  a  painful 
instinct  they  held  that  Friend  and  Teacher  whose 
presence  and  love  had  grown  to  be  their  whole 
life.  They  were  troubled  too  deeply  to  reason 
well  upon  the  purpose  and  way  of  His  going; 
they  only  longed  not  to  lose  Him,  and  clung  to 
Him  with  a  suffocating  premonition. 

Not  directly  does  He  chide  their  distress,  but 
He  corrects  its  degree,  and  would  soothe  the  sore 


io6  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

hearts  whose  anxious  grief  is  His  grief  also. 
Never  does  He  censure  the  tears  that  blind  affec- 
tionate eyes,  but  wipes  them  from  all  faces  with 
His  own  soft  hand. 

When  can  He  better  than  now  assure  them  that 
He  will  not  bereave  them, — that  His  departure 
will  "  not  leave  them  orphans," — that,  in  the 
person  of  another  Helper,  who  shall  more  and 
more  show  them  of  Himself,  He  will  come  to 
them  to  "  abide  with  them  for  ever,"  This  soon, 
and  that  by  and  by  He  their  Lord  will  return  to 
receive  them  again,  and  to  part  from  them  no 
more. 

These  things  He  had  not  told  them  earlier ;  for 
it  was  not  needful  while  He  still  was  with  them, 
but  now  He  plants  in  their  hearts  a  great  hope, 
preparing  them  to  recognize  and  welcome  the 
Holy  Ghost  as  His  personal  and  continued  pres- 
ence.    The  Paraclete  is  Christ's  perdurable  life. 

One  more  token  here  that  the  fondest  and 
firmest  promises  are  made  in  the  hours  of  intensest 
need, — in  wrecked  Eden  that  earliest  gospel  of  the 
seed  of  the  woman  that  should  crush  the  serpent's 
head, — before  impending  Calvary  this  pledge, 
"  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway."  Every  keen  pang 
of  love  that  suffers  and  trusts  is  big  with  revela- 
tion— its  travail   contains   an   overwhelming  joy. 


THE  INVISIBLE  COMPANION  107 

The  consolations  of  God  bestow  new  interpreta- 
tions of  His  nature  and  of  its  nearness,  and  arouse 
an  expectancy  which  shall  be  fulfilled.  And  w^hen 
all  else  is  dark,  to  cite  this  constancy  of  God  is 
the  best  that  human  lips  can  minister  to  human 
distress. 

So  their  Friend  (and  He  is  ours)  declares  to 
them  that  though  their  misery  is  natural,  it  is 
unnecessary.  They  must  have  confidence  in  Him, 
— "  If  it  were  not  so,  I  would  have  told  you  "  ! 
And  to  that  confidence  in  His  absolute  knowledge 
and  fidelity — His  personal  trustworthiness  (and 
this  is  the  very  quintessence  and  marrow  of 
"  faith  " — not  opinion,  or  mental  conclusion,  but 
the  intuition  of  a  person) — to  this  confidence  He 
appeals,  with  a  reason  so  deep  that  they  shall 
always  ponder  it  and  wonder,  as  we,  too,  wonder 
at  its  wealth  :  "It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go 
away."  "  Nevertheless  " — always  the  more  !  In- 
comprehensible :  yet  strange  as  it  seems  He 
pledges  His  truthfulness  that  His  apparent  going 
is  to  be  His  coming  nearer  to  them  than  ever ! 
His  plan,  and  right,  and  glory  is  also  to  be  their 
great  gain. 

They  are  to  accept  this  now  because  He  says 
so, — later  they  are  to  realize  it.  They  are  to 
enter  upon  a  new  era  and  a  riper  experience  of 


lo8  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

God.  Their  fellowship  so  far  is  introductory  to  a 
richer  bestowal  of  His  nature  and  a  more  abun- 
dant manifestation  of  His  life.  As,  far  into  that 
last  night,  their  Friend  talked  on  with  them.  He 
told  them  more  than  all  else  He  had  told  them ; 
but  He  is,  by  that  imparted  Guest  for  whose 
welcome  he  makes  ready,  to  tell  them  more  yet — 
to  enlighten  their  remembrance  and  ever  to  inten- 
sify their  hopes.  Their  Teacher  is  to  draw  them 
to  loftier  vision  and  to  closer  intimacy.  All  they 
had  received  and  learned  so  far  is  but  prelude. 
Power  lay  in  the  promise :  "  Greater  things  than 
these  shall  he  do ;  because  I  go  unto  the  Father." 
"  If  I  go  not  away,  the  Paraclete  will  not  come." 
Thus  does  Christ  affirm  Himself  the  connection 
between  the  outmost  and  the  inmost,  the  God 
above  and  God  within  the  soul,  and  lays  His  hand 
upon  both. 

God  shows  His  love,  both  in  the  course  of  time 
and  in  the  progress  of  each  recovered  heart,  in 
three  consecutive  and  completing  manifestations. 
They  are  climactic  :  Creation,  Incarnation,  Inspira- 
tion. The  universe  about  and  above,  the  animate 
body  with  and  before  us,  the  deep  soul  within, — 
these  are  His  vessels  of  revelation,  affirming  His 
power,  His  personality,  and  His  unseen  presence. 
Reason,  sense,  and  intuition  answer  Him, — Maker, 


THE  INVISIBLE  COMPANION  109 

Kinsman,  and  Companion, — and  in  all,  the  Lord 
and  Lover. 

That  is  most  which  is  inmost,  including  and 
crowning  all  else  and  leading  reflection  through 
feeling  into  direct  vital  certainty.  This  is  the 
order  of  our  apprehension  of  God,  the  objective 
evidence  leading  on  and  into  the  subjective.  And 
the  strongest  is  latest  in  order.  Taking  ourselves 
with  us  at  every  step,  and  led  by  Him  who  is  the 
beginning  and  the  end,  we  climb  the  stairway  of 
experience  and  fact  up  to  the  primary  conviction 
that  "  in  Him  we  live  " — began  to  live  and  live 
now.  First  we  infer,  next  we  perceive,  last  we 
know. 

And  it  was  unto  the  filling  of  this  highest 
knowledge — essence  to  essence,  spirit  to  spirit — 
that  Christ  went  away.  Sight  was  to  be  surpassed 
by  insight.  The  sentient  soul  was  to  transcend 
the  senses. 

So  Paul  said  '*  even  though  we  have  known 
Christ  after  the  flesh,  yet  now  we  know  Him  so 
no  more  " ;  for  He  who  once  dwelt  with  His  dis- 
ciples now  dwells  in  them.  "  The  Lord  is  that 
Spirit " — inhabiting  the  soul  He  saves.  To  real- 
ize this  dispenses  with  all  sentimental  longing  for 
His  form.  How  the  emotions  of  the  world  would 
stir  were  it  proclaimed  that  the  Son  of  God  were 


no  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

again  in  the  flesh,  working  again  as  He  wrought 
at  Capernaum  and  Bethany,  talking  to  this  gray 
and  haggard  age  as  He  talked  in  those  first  years 
of  the  era  He  created !  How  it  would  sift  the 
hearts  of  men !  But  that  such  an  excitement 
would  thrill  the  nations  and  create  an  international 
crisis  would  be,  first,  because  He  is  here  now  and 
has  been  always,  and  second,  because  so  many  do 
not  know  it  or  have  forgotten ! 

He  showed  Himself  then,  long  ago,  because  His 
power  was  to  remain.  He  taught  His  apostles 
more  after  His  ascension  than  they  had  conceived 
before.  There  is  no  fading  out  and  anticlimax  in 
the  written  word.  He  presides  in  it  all.  The 
Old  Testament  is  to  be  reread  in  the  light  of  the 
New,  and  the  great  epistles  "  have  the  mind  of 
Christ "  not  merely  in  comment  but  in  amplifica- 
tion. They  deepen,  protract,  and  fulfill  the  narra- 
tive of  the  Evangels.  Peter  and  John  and  Paul 
unfold  the  meanings — so  universal  and  age-long — 
of  redemption  with  a  ken  and  grasp  which  only 
progress  under  its  central  Person  could  have 
given  them.  He  taught  them  to  the  last,  and 
questions  and  implications  which  the  gospel  raised 
their  after-record  answers.  Nay,  after  them  and 
ever  since,  in  a  sequence  and  enlargement  that 
knows    no    break    or    period,    the    company    of 


THE  INVISIBLE  COMPANION  iii 

those  who  by  the  Spirit  call  Jesus  Lord,  is  the 
integral  proof  of  His  unintermittent  and  for  ever 
culminating  power.  The  Viewless  One  is  the 
constantly  executive  Saviour  of  the  world.  This 
secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear  Him  and 
He  will  show  them  His  covenant. 

Now  surely  we  can  see  some  of  the  eminent 
blessings  which  were  estabHshed  by  the  with- 
drawal of  Christ  from  sight  and  all  external  sense. 
They  are  for  us  also.  First,  it  deepened  the  appre- 
hension of  His  real  nature  and  effect.  The  open 
vision  gave  confidence  in  God  an  immensely  defi- 
nite basis,  but  this  was  also  the  foundation  upon 
which  fidelity  was  yet  to  enlarge.  It  was  not  a 
conclusion,  but  the  beginning  of  a  wider  knowl- 
edge of  the  real  God  ever  immanent  in  the  life  of 
the  world.  The  corner  stone  was  set  fast,  but  the 
temple  was  to  rise.  The  King  was  come  that  the 
kingdom  of  His  truth  might  prove  His  reign  and 
endless  increase  of  government. 

Principle  was  to  surpass  rule,  and  companion- 
ships of  soul  supersede  physical  proximity ;  for 
intuition  is  more  than  inspection,  and  the  local  is 
swallowed  up  of  the  universal.  Much  as  these 
disciples  desired  His  continued  tangible  form  and 
His  audible  word,  they  were  to  learn  Him  better 
by  His   apparent  absence,  following  Him  rather 


112  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

than  their  sight  of  Him,  and  finding  omnipresence 
more  than  ubiquity. 

The  experience  which  is  not  merely  objective, 
nor  even  rational  alone,  but  moral,  is  the  highest 
discipline  and  the  most  direct  and  consummate 
assurance.  The  strongest  evidence  is  in  the 
spirit — this  candle  Christ  lights — and  so,  how- 
ever impossible  seemed  this  announcement,  they 
were  to  comprehend  more  of  their  Lord  and  of  His 
resources  and  intention  by  that  which  then  seemed 
(only  seemed)  to  throw  them  upon  themselves. 

Further,  they  were  to  profit  in  proving  the 
superiority  of  general  over  special  manifestations. 
The  phenomenal  is  everywhere  the  limited  and 
the  transitory,  the  invisible  endures  and  creates 
new  incarnations.  The  "  law  of  the  Spirit  of 
life "  transcends  the  particular  effect  and  in- 
stance. Biology  lies  back  of  morphology.  The 
spiritual  force  is  the  fact,  and  the  given  form  is 
but  its  incident. 

We  realize  by  our  departures.  The  boy  never 
knows  how  much  and  whereunto  his  mother  did 
for  him  until  he  is  gone  from  home.  The  won- 
derful deed  fills  and  dazzles  the  horizon, — after- 
wards its  meaning,  its  implication  toward  and 
interpretation  of  the  accustomed,  translates  it, 
while  it  reillumines  what  for  a  little  while  it  hid. 


THE  INVISIBLE  COMPANION  113 

The  call  or  whisper  of  God  in  the  soul  is  the 
generic  and  normal  thing.  Spirit  itself  beareth 
witness  with  our  spirit.  The  silent  communion 
is  the  closest  and  the  surest.  And  this  constant 
utterance  within  to  those  who  seek  the  Presence 
in  their  hearts  is  the  permanent  truth  which  Christ 
came  to  teach,  and  went  away  that  He  might 
teach  it  the  more.  Herein  at  least  the  Quakers 
have  borne  a  pregnant  testimony.  The  general  is 
more  than  the  special,  and  they  misunderstand 
and  neglect  God  who  now  would  turn  back  to 
demand  a  sign.  The  vacuity  of  "  spiritism "  is 
that  it  reverts  to  the  senses  and  foregoes  spiritu- 
ality. At  the  best  it  doubts  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
so  is  "  by  its  means  defeated  of  its  ends."  It  sub- 
stitutes curiosity  for  communion. 

Moreover,  Christ's  departure  devolved  upon 
His  disciples  larger  responsibilities.  They  were 
to  learn  initiative  and  resolution.  Always  so. 
Ability  grows  thereby  and  certainty.  A  father 
teaches  his  child  the  moves  of  chess,  and  then, 
though  seeing  how  many  plays  might  be  bettered, 
he  is  silent  and  watches,  so  that  the  child  may 
learn  the  game  even  by  losing  games.  Coaching 
is  provisional.  It  does  its  work  by  making  ready 
to  retire.  Our  best  books  are  those  we  have 
mastered.     A  college  is  in  order  that  its  students 


114  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

may  cease  to  be  undergraduates.  It  is  applied 
that  it  may  educe  the  after  man.  There  is  no 
influence  that  we  appreciate  while  we  are  absorb- 
ing it,  but  only  when  it  proves  itself  by  flowing 
from  us.     Its  reflex  is  its  fulfillment. 

Christ's  going  was  the  promotion  of  those  men 
of  His,  thereafter  to  do  what  He  had  done. 
Pupils  are  to  become  teachers — disciples  to  be 
apostles.  They  are  to  reveal  His  life  In  their 
mortal  bodies.  A  world  is  put  upon  their  hands, 
while  they  and  it  still  are  on  His  heart.  They 
have  a  testimony  to  give,  nourished  all  the  while 
in  their  souls  by  Him  who  commissions  them. 

How  wonderfully  and  how  fast  they  grew ! 
The  Peter  of  that  night  could  shame  all  that 
external  knowledge  had  done  for  him,  but  not 
after  Pentecost.  The  Unseen  was  to  rouse  a 
deeper  faith  than  sight  had  ever  conferred.  And 
to  the  last — a  new  beatitude,  "  Blessed  are  they 
that  have  not  seen  and  yet  have  believed."  He 
who  was  there,  is  here ! 

How  evidently  Christ,  who  knew  when  to  come, 
knew  when  to  go !  The  work  of  incarnation  was 
done,  inspiration  was  established  once  for  all. 
Their  Lord's  fidelity  challenges  theirs,  as  His 
representatives.  Reasserting  the  permanent  prox- 
imity of  God,  the  task  was  finished. 


THE  INVISIBLE  COMPANION  115 

All  work  is  best  done  by  making  it  ready  to 
transfer,  by  putting  into  it  a  spirit  that  shall  sur- 
vive one's  physical  presence  and  that  shall  inspire 
others  to  maintain  and  advance  it.  He  imparted 
what  could  not  but  endure,  Christ's  legacy  was 
His  changed  but  deepened  companionship.  Had 
He  lived  on  in  Galilee,  to  be  known  only  as  He 
might  be  seen,  all  the  millions  of  men  who  know 
Him  now  had  been  the  losers. 

His  more  **  expedient  "  way  is  His  way  toward 
and  for  us.  Perhaps  you  think  that  to  see  Him 
with  your  mortal  eyes  would  make  you  sure,  and 
that  His  visible  lips  would  answer  your  com- 
plex questions,  His  palpable  hands  lighten  so 
many  burdens ;  but  the  immortal  eyes  are  surer, 
the  inner  voice  more  intimate,  the  help  more 
immediate.  He  chose  for  those  disciples  the 
wider,  fuller,  completer  manifestation,  giving  not 
as  the  world  gives,  and  His  Good-by  was  not  a 
parting  after  all.     He  is  not  gone ! 

We  whisper  that  child's  hymn  : — 

"  I  wish  that  His  hands  had  been  laid  on  my  head, 
That  His  arms  had  been  thrown  around  me, 
And  that  I  might  have  seen  His  kind  looks,'' 

but  "Abide  with  me  "  is  a  nobler  aspiration. 

Meeting  Him  now  in  the  daily  inmost  life,  all 


ii6  THE  WELL  BY  THE  GATE 

things  but  hasten  the  day  wherein  we  shall  have 
that  whose  postponement  is  our  best  probation. 
"  A  little  while  "  and  you  shall  see  Him  as  He  is, 
then  also  to  add  your  rapturous  Amen  to  that 
which,  when  it  was  given,  was  so  inconceivably 
great  a  promise,  and  to  say  and  fully  know — **  It 
was  expedient  that  He  went  away." 


Date  Due 

Jl  9     M 

— j*^ 

j^pu*-*^ 

1 

(|) 

